Dust Emission in an Accretion-rate-limited Sample of z ≳ 6 Quasars

  • Bram P. Venemans
  • , Roberto Decarli
  • , Fabian Walter
  • , Eduardo BaNados
  • , Frank Bertoldi
  • , Xiaohui Fan
  • , Emanuele Paolo Farina
  • , Chiara Mazzucchelli
  • , Dominik Riechers
  • , Hans Walter Rix
  • , Ran Wang
  • , Yujin Yang

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

91 Scopus citations

Abstract

We present Atacama Large Millimeter Array 1 mm observations of the rest-frame far-infrared (FIR) dust continuum in 27 quasars at redshifts 6.0 ≲ z < 6.7. We detect FIR emission at ≈3σ in all quasar host galaxies with flux densities at ∼1900 GHz in the rest-frame of 0.12 < S rest,1900 GHz < 5.9 mJy, with a median (mean) flux density of 0.88 mJy (1.59 mJy). The implied FIR luminosities range from = (0.27-13) ×1012 , with 74% of our quasar hosts having > 1012 . The estimated dust masses are Mdust = 107-109 Mo. If the dust is heated only by star formation, then the star formation rates in the quasar host galaxies are between 50 and 2700 Mo yr-1. In the framework of the host galaxy-black hole coevolution model a correlation between ongoing black hole growth and star formation in the quasar host galaxy would be expected. However, combined with results from the literature to create a luminosity-limited quasar sample, we do not find a strong correlation between quasar UV luminosity (a proxy for ongoing black hole growth) and FIR luminosity (star formation in the host galaxy). The absence of such a correlation in our data does not necessarily rule out the coevolution model, and could be due to a variety of effects (including different timescales for black hole accretion and FIR emission).

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number159
JournalAstrophysical Journal
Volume866
Issue number2
DOIs
StatePublished - Oct 20 2018

Keywords

  • galaxies: high-redshift
  • galaxies: star formation
  • galaxies: statistics
  • quasars: general

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Astronomy and Astrophysics
  • Space and Planetary Science

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