A luminous quasar at a redshift of z = 7.085

By Daniel J. Mortlock, S. Warren, B. Venemans, M. Patel, Paul Hewett, R. McMahon, C. Simpson, Tom Theuns, E. Gonzales-Solares, A. Adamson and 7 more. Nature, 2011

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The intergalactic medium was not completely reionized until approximately a billion years after the Big Bang, as revealed by observations of quasars with redshifts of less than 6.5. It has been difficult to probe to higher redshifts, however, because quasars have historically been identified in optical surveys, which are insensitive to sources at redshifts exceeding 6.5. Here we report observations of a quasar (ULAS J112001.48+064124.3) at a redshift of 7.085, which is 0.77 billion years after the Big Bang. ULAS J1120+0641 has a luminosity of 6.3 × 1013L⊙ and hosts a black hole with a mass of 2 × 109M⊙ (where L⊙ and M⊙ are the luminosity and mass of the Sun). The measured radius of the ionized near zone around ULAS J1120+0641 is 1.9 megaparsecs, a factor of three smaller than is typical for quasars at redshifts between 6.0 and 6.4. The near-zone transmission profile is consistent with a Lyα damping wing, suggesting that the neutral fraction of the intergalactic medium in front of ULAS J1120+0641 exceeded 0.1.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

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The bolometric quasar luminosity function at z = 0–7 (2020, background): “Due to their high radiative efficiency, such objects can be extremely luminous and are detected at z > 7 (Mortlock et al. 2011; Venemans et al. 2015; Bañados et al. 2018).”
EVIDENCE FOR PopIII-LIKE STELLAR POPULATIONS IN THE MOST LUMINOUS Lyα EMITTERS AT THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION: SPECTROSCOPIC CONFIRMATION (2015, background): “…Ch. des Maillettes, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland 6 CNRS, IRAP, 14 Avenue E. Belin, 31400 Toulouse, France to a handful of galaxies and quasars at z > 6.5 (e.g. Mortlock et al. 2011; Ono et al. 2012; Schenker et al. 2014; Finkelstein et al. 2013; Pentericci et al. 2014; Oesch et al. 2015), for both…”
The Romulus cosmological simulations: a physical approach to the formation, dynamics and accretion models of SMBHs (2016, background): “Accreting SMBHs lead to extremely energetic events throughout cosmic time, including luminous z > 6 quasars powered by SMBHs with masses as high as 109 M (Fan et al. 2001; Mortlock et al. 2011).”
SUPER-CRITICAL GROWTH OF MASSIVE BLACK HOLES FROM STELLAR-MASS SEEDS (2014, background): “The most distant quasar discovered to date, ULAS J1120+0641 at a redshift z = 7.084, is believed to host a black hole with a mass of 2.0+1.5 −0.7×10 9 M⊙ that is shining 0.78 Gyr after the Big Bang (Mortlock et al. 2011).”
SILVERRUSH. IV. Lyα luminosity functions at z = 5.7 and 6.6 studied with ∼1300 Lyα emitters on the 14–21 deg2 sky (2017, background): “…3 toward higher redshift (e.g., Haardt & Madau 2012), some previous studies suggest the existence of (faint) AGNs at z ∼ 6− 7 (e.g., Willott et al. 2010; Mortlock et al. 2011; Kashikawa et al. 2015; Giallongo et al. 2015; Jiang et al. 2016; Bowler et al. 2017b; Parsa et al. 2017 ), which may…”
Stellar population effects on the inferred photon density at reionization (2015, background): “A small but growing number of quasar host galaxies are also known at z > 7 (Mortlock et al. 2011) while gamma-ray bursts have been identified at z > 8, and their host galaxies constrained (Tanvir et al. 2009, 2012; Berger et al. 2014).”
CONNECTING THE GAMMA RAY BURST RATE AND THE COSMIC STAR FORMATION HISTORY: IMPLICATIONS FOR REIONIZATION AND GALAXY EVOLUTION (2011, background): “The ratioΨ(z) 2 Robertson & Ellis could be inferred by comparing the cumulative redshift distribution N( z) of GRBs with the observed evolution of the star-formation rate densitẏρ⋆(z) over the range of redshifts where ρ̇⋆(z) is well-measured.”
The birth of a galaxy – III. Propelling reionization with the faintest galaxies (2014, background): “First, the transmission fraction of z ∼ 6 quasar light blueward of Lyα through the intergalactic medium (IGM) indicates that the Universe was mostly ionized by this epoch (e.g. Gunn & Peterson 1965; Fan et al. 2002, 2006; Willott et al. 2007; Mortlock et al. 2011).”
The Giant Gemini GMOS survey of zem > 4.4 quasars – I. Measuring the mean free path across cosmic time (2014, background): “These include the most distant quasars (Fan et al. 2006; Mortlock et al. 2011) and z > 8 gammaray bursts ‘revealed’ by their extremely faint optical fluxes (Kawai et al. 2006; Cucchiara et al. 2011; Chornock et al. 2013).”
Doing Science with eLISA: Astrophysics and Cosmology in the Millihertz Regime (2012, background): “003, and hosts a bright, very massive black hole of ∼ 2 × 109 M (Mortlock et al., 2011).”
New Measurements of the Ionizing Ultraviolet Background over 2 < z < 5 and Implications for Hydrogen Reionization (2013, background): “This high emissivity, if it persists to higher redshifts, would explain how the last, and potentially densest, 10 per cent of the IGM may have been reionized after z = 7 (Mortlock et al. 2011; Bolton et al. 2011).”
Hyper-Eddington accretion flows on to massive black holes (2015, background): “The existence of bright quasars (QSOs) at highredshift (z & 6) provides a challenging puzzle about the origin of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) with masses & 109 M⊙ (Fan 2006; Willott et al. 2010; Mortlock et al. 2011; Venemans et al. 2013; Bañados et al. 2014; Wu et al. 2015).”
21 cm cosmology in the 21st century (2011, background): “1 [193], but their number density drops rapidly at redshifts z 3 [194].”
21CMMC: an MCMC analysis tool enabling astrophysical parameter studies of the cosmic 21 cm signal (2015, background): “For example, such constraints can be obtained from the spectra of high-z quasars such as ULAS J1120+0641 (Bolton et al. 2011; Mortlock et al. 2011) or from the observed drop in Lyman-α emission from high-z galaxies (e.g. Caruana et al. 2014; Pentericci et al. 2014; Dijkstra et al. 2014; Mesinger et…”
The Large Sky Area Multi-object Fiber Spectroscopic Telescope (LAMOST) Quasar Survey: The Fourth and Fifth Data Releases (2018, methodology): “These methods have led to the discovery of more and more intermediate- and high-redshift quasars (e.g., Mortlock et al. 2011; Wu et al. 2013, 2015; Wang et al. 2016).”