An 800-million-solar-mass black hole in a significantly neutral Universe at a redshift of 7.5.

Autor: Bañados E; The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, California 91101, USA., Venemans BP; Max Planck Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany., Mazzucchelli C; Max Planck Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany., Farina EP; Max Planck Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany., Walter F; Max Planck Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany., Wang F; Department of Astronomy, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.; Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China., Decarli R; Max Planck Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany.; INAF-Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna, via Gobetti 93/3, 40129 Bologna, Italy., Stern D; Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, 4800 Oak Grove Drive, Pasadena, California 91109, USA., Fan X; Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, Arizona 85721-0065, USA., Davies FB; Department of Physics, Broida Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106-9530, USA., Hennawi JF; Department of Physics, Broida Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara, California 93106-9530, USA., Simcoe RA; MIT-Kavli Center for Astrophysics and Space Research, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA., Turner ML; MIT-Kavli Center for Astrophysics and Space Research, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02139, USA.; Las Cumbres Observatory, 6740 Cortona Drive, Goleta, California 93117, USA., Rix HW; Max Planck Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany., Yang J; Department of Astronomy, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China.; Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing 100871, China., Kelson DD; The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, California 91101, USA., Rudie GC; The Observatories of the Carnegie Institution for Science, 813 Santa Barbara Street, Pasadena, California 91101, USA., Winters JM; Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM), 300 rue de la Piscine, 38406 Saint Martin d'Hères, France.
Jazyk: angličtina
Zdroj: Nature [Nature] 2018 Jan 25; Vol. 553 (7689), pp. 473-476. Date of Electronic Publication: 2017 Dec 06.
DOI: 10.1038/nature25180
Abstrakt: Quasars are the most luminous non-transient objects known and as a result they enable studies of the Universe at the earliest cosmic epochs. Despite extensive efforts, however, the quasar ULAS J1120 + 0641 at redshift z = 7.09 has remained the only one known at z > 7 for more than half a decade. Here we report observations of the quasar ULAS J134208.10 + 092838.61 (hereafter J1342 + 0928) at redshift z = 7.54. This quasar has a bolometric luminosity of 4 × 10 13 times the luminosity of the Sun and a black-hole mass of 8 × 10 8 solar masses. The existence of this supermassive black hole when the Universe was only 690 million years old-just five per cent of its current age-reinforces models of early black-hole growth that allow black holes with initial masses of more than about 10 4 solar masses or episodic hyper-Eddington accretion. We see strong evidence of absorption of the spectrum of the quasar redwards of the Lyman α emission line (the Gunn-Peterson damping wing), as would be expected if a significant amount (more than 10 per cent) of the hydrogen in the intergalactic medium surrounding J1342 + 0928 is neutral. We derive such a significant fraction of neutral hydrogen, although the exact fraction depends on the modelling. However, even in our most conservative analysis we find a fraction of more than 0.33 (0.11) at 68 per cent (95 per cent) probability, indicating that we are probing well within the reionization epoch of the Universe.
Databáze: MEDLINE
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