A Survey of z > 5.7 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. II. Discovery of Three Additional Quasars at z > 6

By Xiaohui Fan, M. Strauss, D. Schneider, Robert H. Becker, R. White, Zoltán Haiman, M. Gregg, L. Pentericci, E. Grebel, V. Narayanan and 21 more. 2003

640 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present the discovery of three new quasars at z > 6 in ∼ 1300 deg2 of Sloan Digital Sky Survey imaging data, J114816.64+525150.3 (z = 6.43), J104845.05+463718.3 (z = 6.23), and J163033.90+401209.6 (z = 6.05). The first two objects have weak Lyα emission lines; their redshifts are determined from the positions of the Lyman break. They are only accurate to ∼0.05 and could be affected by the presence of broad absorption line systems. The last object has a Lyα strength more typical of lower redshift quasars. Based on a sample of six quasars at z > 5.7 that cover 2870 deg2 presented in this paper and in Paper I, we estimate the comoving density of luminous quasars at z ∼ 6 and M1450 < -26.8 to be (8 ± 3) × 10-10 Mpc-3 (for H0 = 50 km s-1 Mpc-1, Ω = 1). Hubble Space Telescope imaging of two z > 5.7 quasars and high-resolution, ground-based images (seeing ∼0.″4) of three additional z > 5.7 quasars show that none of them is gravitationally lensed. The luminosity distribution of the high-redshift quasar sample suggests the bright-end slope of the quasar luminosity function at z ∼ 6 is shallower than Ψ ∝ L-3.5 (2 σ), consistent with the absence of strongly lensed objects.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/44cb8116e9daeeb57c1764daeb3648d980482bd3

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GALAXY ZOO: THE FUNDAMENTALLY DIFFERENT CO-EVOLUTION OF SUPERMASSIVE BLACK HOLES AND THEIR EARLY- AND LATE-TYPE HOST GALAXIES (2010, background): “Quasars powered by ∼ 109M⊙ black holes are already observed about 1 Gyr after the Big Bang, implying that they must have reached these masses in a very brief, intense growth phase (e.g., Fan et al. 2001, 2003, 2004; Fan 2006).”
Theoretical isochrones in several photometric systems. II. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey ugriz system (2004, background): “…as a function of redshift (e.g., Gómez et al. 2003; Eisenstei et al. 2003; Blanton et al. 2001), the search for high-redshift quasars (e.g., Fan et al. 2001, 2003), weak lensing (e.g., Fischer et al. 2000; McKay et al. 2002), and the large-scale structure distribution of galaxies (e.g.,…”
MOLECULAR GAS IN z ∼ 6 QUASAR HOST GALAXIES (2010, methodology): “We list the basic information of all the eight FIR luminous z∼6 quasars in Table 1, including their redshifts from the discovery papers (Fan et al. 2000, 2003, 2006a, Jiang et al. 2008, Cool et al.2006), optical magnitudes, continuum flux densities at 250 GHz and 1.4 GHz (Bertoldi et al. 2003a;…”
Very extended cold gas, star formation and outflows in the halo of a bright QSO at z>6 (2014, background): “SDSS J1148+5251 was discovered through SDSS photometry (Fan et al. 2003), and since then it has been the subject of extensive multi-wavelength studies, aimed at constraining the extreme properties of its host galaxy and of its cosmological environment (e.g. Bertoldi et al. 2003; Walter et al. 2003,…”
Expanding Confusion: Common Misconceptions of Cosmological Horizons and the Superluminal Expansion of the Universe (2003, background): “The highest spectroscopic redshift observed in the Hubble deep field is z = 6.68 (Chen, Lanzetta & Pascarelle 1999) and the Sloan digital sky survey has identified four galaxies at z > 6 (Fan et al. 2003).”
EDDINGTON-LIMITED ACCRETION AND THE BLACK HOLE MASS FUNCTION AT REDSHIFT 6 (2010, background): “This redshift of z = 6.438 is the highest of any known quasar, just surpassing SDSS J1148+5251 at z = 6.419 (Fan et al. 2003; Walter et al. 2003) and CFHQSJ2329-0301 at z = 6.417 (Section 3).”
First Measurement of the Clustering Evolution of Photometrically Classified Quasars (2005, background): “When studying the distribution of matter at high redshifts (z > 1), quasi-stellar objects (quasars or QSOs) are a better tracer than galaxies, as they are extremely luminous and can be identified from current multicolor optical imaging out to a redshift of z ’ 6:5 (Fan et al. 2003).”
Rapid Growth of High-Redshift Black Holes (2005, background): “The halo mass is chosen by requiring that the number density in haloes more massive than Mh matches the space density of quasars at z = 6 (Fan et al. 2003, 2004).”
Near-Infrared Photometry and Spectroscopy of L and T Dwarfs: The Effects of Temperature, Clouds, and Gravity (2004, methodology): “Objects this red are rare; at the SDSS magnitude limits they are late L and T dwarfs, quasars at redshift greater than 5.7 (Fan et al. 2001, 2003) or very rare unusual broad absorption line quasars (see Hall et al. 2002), and their surface density is smaller than about one per 50 deg2.”
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog. II. First Data Release (2003, methodology): “The SDSS has identified quasars to z = 6.4 (e.g., Fan et al. 2003 and references therein), but objects with z > 5.7 cannot be found by the standard SDSS software.”
Taxing the rich: Recombinations and bubble growth during reionization (2005, background): “Each shows saturated or nearly saturated absorption in the Lyα forest as well as a rapid decrease in the transmission at z ≈ 6 (Fan et al. E-mail: sfurlane@tapir.caltech.edu (SRF); peng@physics.ucsb.edu (SPO) 2001; Becker et al. 2001; White et al. 2003; Fan et al. 2003, 2004).”
Observational Constraints on Cosmic Reionization (2006, methodology): “…Fan et al. 2002Fan, X., Narayanan, V. K., Strauss, M. A., White, R. L., Becker, R. H., Pentericci, L., & Rix, H.-W. 2002, A.J., 123: 1247-1257 Fan et al. 2003Fan, X., et al. 2003, A.J., 125: 1649-1659 Fan et al. 2004Fan, X., et al. 2004, A.J., 128: 515-522 Fan et al. 2006aFan et al. 2006a,…”
The Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) Shallow Survey (2004, background): “However, Fan et al. (2003) find only 1 such quasar per 500 deg2.”
Dusty Star Forming Galaxies at High Redshift (2014, background): “Local galaxies are easy to cross-identify throughwide area shallow optical surveys such as SDSS while radio blazars are easily identifiable with shallow radio surveys such as NVSS. Theoretical predictions are such that at 500 µm, once accounting for local galaxies and radio blazars, lensed DSFGs sho”
Physical Properties of 15 Quasars at z ≳ 6.5 (2017, background): “…∼200 quasars have been discovered at 5.4 < z < 6.4, mainly thanks to the advent of largearea surveys: e.g., the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; Fan et al. 2000, 2003, 2006, Jiang et al. 2016, Wang et al. 2016, 2017); the Canada-France High-redshift Quasar Survey (CFHQS; Willott et al. 2007,…”
NEW CONSTRAINTS ON COSMIC REIONIZATION FROM THE 2012 HUBBLE ULTRA DEEP FIELD CAMPAIGN (2013, background): “However, observations of the Gunn & Peterson (1965) trough in quasar spectra (e.g., Fan et al. 2001, 2002, 2003, 2006b; Djorgovski et al. 2001) indicate that intergalactic gas hasbecome almost fully reionized by redshiftz ∼ 5.”
THE PAN-STARRS1 DISTANT z > 5.6 QUASAR SURVEY: MORE THAN 100 QUASARS WITHIN THE FIRST GYR OF THE UNIVERSE (2016, neutral): “— (1) This work, (2) Fan et al. (2000), (3) Fan et al. (2001), (4) Fan et al. (2003), (5) Fan et al. (2004), (6) Mahabal et al. (2005), (7) Cool et al. (2006), (8) Fan et al. (2006), (9) Goto (2006), (10) McGreer et al. (2006), (11) Carilli et al. (2007), (12) Kurk et al. (2007), (13) Stern et al.…”