A thirty-four billion solar mass black hole in SMSS J2157–3602, the most luminous known quasar

Christopher A. Onken; Fuyan Bian; Xiaohui Fan; Feige Wang; Christian Wolf; Jinyi Yang

doi:10.1093/MNRAS/STAA1635

A thirty-four billion solar mass black hole in SMSS J2157–3602, the most luminous known quasar

Christopher A. Onken, Fuyan Bian, Xiaohui Fan, Feige Wang, Christian Wolf, Jinyi Yang

Astronomy

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

3 Scopus citations

Abstract

From near-infrared spectroscopic measurements of the Mg II emission line doublet, we estimate the black hole (BH) mass of the quasar, SMSS J215728.21–360215.1, as being (3.4 ± 0.6) × 10¹⁰ M and refine the redshift of the quasar to be z = 4.692. SMSS J2157 is the most luminous known quasar, with a 3000 Å luminosity of (4.7 ± 0.5) × 10⁴⁷ erg s⁻¹ and an estimated bolometric luminosity of 1.6 × 10⁴⁸ erg s⁻¹, yet its Eddington ratio is only ∼0.4. Thus, the high luminosity of this quasar is a consequence of its extremely large BH – one of the most massive BHs at z > 4.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	2309-2314
Number of pages	6
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume	496
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1093/MNRAS/STAA1635
State	Published - 2020

Keywords

Galaxies: active – quasars
Individual
SMSS J215728.21–360215.1

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

Access to Document

10.1093/MNRAS/STAA1635

Cite this

@article{20449c0228fa422a9e4dc61dc8271c72,

title = "A thirty-four billion solar mass black hole in SMSS J2157–3602, the most luminous known quasar",

abstract = "From near-infrared spectroscopic measurements of the Mg II emission line doublet, we estimate the black hole (BH) mass of the quasar, SMSS J215728.21–360215.1, as being (3.4 ± 0.6) × 1010 M and refine the redshift of the quasar to be z = 4.692. SMSS J2157 is the most luminous known quasar, with a 3000 {\AA} luminosity of (4.7 ± 0.5) × 1047 erg s−1 and an estimated bolometric luminosity of 1.6 × 1048 erg s−1, yet its Eddington ratio is only ∼0.4. Thus, the high luminosity of this quasar is a consequence of its extremely large BH – one of the most massive BHs at z > 4.",

keywords = "Galaxies: active – quasars, Individual, SMSS J215728.21–360215.1",

author = "Onken, {Christopher A.} and Fuyan Bian and Xiaohui Fan and Feige Wang and Christian Wolf and Jinyi Yang",

note = "Funding Information: This project used data obtained with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), whichwas constructedbythe DarkEnergySurvey(DES) collaboration. Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by Funding Information: We thank the support staff at Keck, Magellan, and the VLT. This paper includes data gathered with the 6.5-m Magellan Telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. This paper is based, in part, on observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 0104.A–0410(A). Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W.M. Keck Foundation. The authors wish to recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Mauna Kea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. Funding Information: We thank the referee for their comments, all helpful. We thank Indrajit Patra for prompting a more thorough check of other luminous quasars, and Xue-Bing Wu for looking into the LAMOST Quasar Survey data. We acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council through Discovery Project DP190100252. XF and JY acknowledge support from NASA ADAP grant NNX17AF28G S003 and US NSF grant AST 19-08284. FW acknowledges support by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant #HST-HF2-51448.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract NAS5-26555. The national facility capability for SkyMapper has been funded through ARC LIEF grant LE130100104 from the Australian Research Council, awarded to the University of Sydney, the Australian National University, Swinburne University of Technology, the University of Queensland, the University of Western Australia, the University of Melbourne, Curtin University of Technology, Monash University, and the Australian Astronomical Observatory. Publisher Copyright: {\textcopyright} 2020 The Author(s)",

year = "2020",

doi = "10.1093/MNRAS/STAA1635",

language = "English (US)",

volume = "496",

pages = "2309--2314",

journal = "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society",

issn = "0035-8711",

publisher = "Oxford University Press",

number = "2",

}

TY - JOUR

T1 - A thirty-four billion solar mass black hole in SMSS J2157–3602, the most luminous known quasar

AU - Onken, Christopher A.

AU - Bian, Fuyan

AU - Fan, Xiaohui

AU - Wang, Feige

AU - Wolf, Christian

AU - Yang, Jinyi

N1 - Funding Information: This project used data obtained with the Dark Energy Camera (DECam), whichwas constructedbythe DarkEnergySurvey(DES) collaboration. Funding for the DES Projects has been provided by Funding Information: We thank the support staff at Keck, Magellan, and the VLT. This paper includes data gathered with the 6.5-m Magellan Telescopes located at Las Campanas Observatory, Chile. This paper is based, in part, on observations made with ESO Telescopes at the La Silla Paranal Observatory under programme ID 0104.A–0410(A). Some of the data presented herein were obtained at the W. M. Keck Observatory, which is operated as a scientific partnership among the California Institute of Technology, the University of California, and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. The observatory was made possible by the generous financial support of the W.M. Keck Foundation. The authors wish to recognize and acknowledge the very significant cultural role and reverence that the summit of Mauna Kea has always had within the indigenous Hawaiian community. We are most fortunate to have the opportunity to conduct observations from this mountain. Funding Information: We thank the referee for their comments, all helpful. We thank Indrajit Patra for prompting a more thorough check of other luminous quasars, and Xue-Bing Wu for looking into the LAMOST Quasar Survey data. We acknowledge support from the Australian Research Council through Discovery Project DP190100252. XF and JY acknowledge support from NASA ADAP grant NNX17AF28G S003 and US NSF grant AST 19-08284. FW acknowledges support by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant #HST-HF2-51448.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract NAS5-26555. The national facility capability for SkyMapper has been funded through ARC LIEF grant LE130100104 from the Australian Research Council, awarded to the University of Sydney, the Australian National University, Swinburne University of Technology, the University of Queensland, the University of Western Australia, the University of Melbourne, Curtin University of Technology, Monash University, and the Australian Astronomical Observatory. Publisher Copyright: © 2020 The Author(s)

PY - 2020

Y1 - 2020

N2 - From near-infrared spectroscopic measurements of the Mg II emission line doublet, we estimate the black hole (BH) mass of the quasar, SMSS J215728.21–360215.1, as being (3.4 ± 0.6) × 1010 M and refine the redshift of the quasar to be z = 4.692. SMSS J2157 is the most luminous known quasar, with a 3000 Å luminosity of (4.7 ± 0.5) × 1047 erg s−1 and an estimated bolometric luminosity of 1.6 × 1048 erg s−1, yet its Eddington ratio is only ∼0.4. Thus, the high luminosity of this quasar is a consequence of its extremely large BH – one of the most massive BHs at z > 4.

AB - From near-infrared spectroscopic measurements of the Mg II emission line doublet, we estimate the black hole (BH) mass of the quasar, SMSS J215728.21–360215.1, as being (3.4 ± 0.6) × 1010 M and refine the redshift of the quasar to be z = 4.692. SMSS J2157 is the most luminous known quasar, with a 3000 Å luminosity of (4.7 ± 0.5) × 1047 erg s−1 and an estimated bolometric luminosity of 1.6 × 1048 erg s−1, yet its Eddington ratio is only ∼0.4. Thus, the high luminosity of this quasar is a consequence of its extremely large BH – one of the most massive BHs at z > 4.

KW - Galaxies: active – quasars

KW - Individual

KW - SMSS J215728.21–360215.1

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85099083777&partnerID=8YFLogxK

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=85099083777&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1093/MNRAS/STAA1635

DO - 10.1093/MNRAS/STAA1635

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85099083777

VL - 496

SP - 2309

EP - 2314

JO - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

JF - Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

SN - 0035-8711

IS - 2

ER -

A thirty-four billion solar mass black hole in SMSS J2157–3602, the most luminous known quasar

Abstract

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Access to Document

Other files and links

Fingerprint

Cite this