TY - JOUR
T1 - A Significantly Neutral Intergalactic Medium around the Luminous z = 7 Quasar J0252-0503
AU - Wang, Feige
AU - Davies, Frederick B.
AU - Yang, Jinyi
AU - Hennawi, Joseph F.
AU - Fan, Xiaohui
AU - Barth, Aaron J.
AU - Jiang, Linhua
AU - Wu, Xue Bing
AU - Mudd, Dale M.
AU - Bañados, Eduardo
AU - Bian, Fuyan
AU - Decarli, Roberto
AU - Eilers, Anna Christina
AU - Farina, Emanuele Paolo
AU - Venemans, Bram
AU - Walter, Fabian
AU - Yue, Minghao
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2020. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved..
PY - 2020/6/10
Y1 - 2020/6/10
N2 - Luminous z ≥ 7 quasars provide direct probes of the evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the intergalactic medium (IGM) during the epoch of reionization (EoR). The Lyα damping wing absorption imprinted by neutral hydrogen in the IGM can be detected in a single EoR quasar spectrum, allowing the measurement of the IGM neutral fraction toward that line of sight. However, damping wing features have only been detected in two z > 7 quasars in previous studies. In this paper, we present new high-quality optical and near-infrared spectroscopy of the z = 7.00 quasar DES J025216.64-050331.8 obtained with Keck/Near-Infrared Echellette Spectrometer and Gemini/GMOS. By using the Mg ii single-epoch virial method, we find that it hosts a SMBH accreting at an Eddington ratio of λ Edd = 0.7 0.1, consistent with the values seen in other luminous z ∼ 7 quasars. Furthermore, the Lyα region of the spectrum exhibits a strong damping wing absorption feature. The lack of associated metal absorption in the quasar spectrum indicates that this absorption is imprinted by a neutral IGM. Using a state-of-the-art model developed by Davies et al., we measure a volume-averaged neutral hydrogen fraction at z = 7 of within 68% (95%) confidence intervals when marginalizing over quasar lifetimes of. This is the highest IGM neutral fraction yet measured using reionization-era quasar spectra.
AB - Luminous z ≥ 7 quasars provide direct probes of the evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the intergalactic medium (IGM) during the epoch of reionization (EoR). The Lyα damping wing absorption imprinted by neutral hydrogen in the IGM can be detected in a single EoR quasar spectrum, allowing the measurement of the IGM neutral fraction toward that line of sight. However, damping wing features have only been detected in two z > 7 quasars in previous studies. In this paper, we present new high-quality optical and near-infrared spectroscopy of the z = 7.00 quasar DES J025216.64-050331.8 obtained with Keck/Near-Infrared Echellette Spectrometer and Gemini/GMOS. By using the Mg ii single-epoch virial method, we find that it hosts a SMBH accreting at an Eddington ratio of λ Edd = 0.7 0.1, consistent with the values seen in other luminous z ∼ 7 quasars. Furthermore, the Lyα region of the spectrum exhibits a strong damping wing absorption feature. The lack of associated metal absorption in the quasar spectrum indicates that this absorption is imprinted by a neutral IGM. Using a state-of-the-art model developed by Davies et al., we measure a volume-averaged neutral hydrogen fraction at z = 7 of within 68% (95%) confidence intervals when marginalizing over quasar lifetimes of. This is the highest IGM neutral fraction yet measured using reionization-era quasar spectra.
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U2 - 10.3847/1538-4357/ab8c45
DO - 10.3847/1538-4357/ab8c45
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85090245387
SN - 0004-637X
VL - 896
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
IS - 1
M1 - 23
ER -