MSGID: 1:317/3 649d08f4   
   PID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
   TID: hpt/lnx 1.9.0-cur 2019-01-08   
    Starlight and the first black holes: researchers detect the host   
   galaxies of quasars in the early universe    
      
     Date:   
         June 28, 2023   
     Source:   
         Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe   
     Summary:   
         For the first time, the James Webb Space Telescope has revealed   
         starlight from two massive galaxies hosting actively growing   
         black holes -- quasars -- seen less than a billion years after   
         the Big Bang.   
      
      
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   FULL STORY   
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   New images from the James Webb Space Telescope have revealed, for the   
   first time, starlight from two massive galaxies hosting actively growing   
   black holes -- quasars -- seen less than a billion years after the Big   
   Bang. A new study in Nature this week finds the black holes have masses   
   close to a billion times that of the Sun, and the host galaxy masses   
   are almost one hundred times larger, a ratio similar to what is found in   
   the more recent universe. A powerful combination of the Subaru Telescope   
   and the JWST has paved a new path to study the distant universe.   
      
   The existence of such massive black holes in the distant universe has   
   created more questions than answers for astrophysicists. How could these   
   black holes grow to be so large when the universe was so young? Even more   
   puzzling, observations in the local universe show a clear relation between   
   the mass of supermassive black holes and the much larger galaxies in which   
   they reside. The galaxies and the black holes have completely different   
   sizes, so which came first: the black holes or the galaxies? This is a   
   "chicken-or-egg" problem on a cosmic scale.   
      
   An international team of researchers, led by Kavli Institute for the   
   Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) Project Researcher   
   Xuheng Ding and Professor John Silverman, and Peking University Kavli   
   Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (PKU-KIAA) Kavli Astrophysics   
   Fellow Masafusa Onoue have started to answer this question with the   
   James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), launched in December 2021. Studying   
   the relation between host galaxies and black holes in the early universe   
   allows scientists to watch their formation, and see how they are related   
   to one another.   
      
   Quasars are luminous, while their host galaxies are faint, which has made   
   it challenging for researchers to detect the dim light of the galaxy   
   in the glare of the quasar, especially at great distances. Before the   
   JWST, the Hubble Space Telescope was able to detect host galaxies of   
   luminous quasars when the universe was just under 3 billion years old,   
   but no younger.   
      
   The superb sensitivity and the ultra-sharp images of the JWST at infrared   
   wavelengths finally allowed researchers to push these studies to the time   
   when the quasars and galaxies first formed. Just a few months after JWST   
   started regular operations, the team observed two quasars, HSC J2236+0032   
   and HSC J2255+0251, at redshifts 6.40 and 6.34 when the universe was   
   approximately 860 million years old. These two quasars were discovered   
   in a deep survey program of the 8.2m-Subaru Telescope on the summit of   
   Maunakea in Hawai'i. The relatively low luminosities of these quasars   
   made them prime targets for measurement of the host galaxy properties,   
   and the successful detection of the hosts represents the earliest epoch   
   to date at which starlight has been detected in a quasar.   
      
   The images of the two quasars were taken at infrared wavelengths of 3.56   
   and 1.50 micron with JWST's NIRCam instrument, and the host galaxies   
   became apparent after carefully modeling and subtracting glare from   
   the accreting black holes. The stellar signature of the host galaxy   
   was also seen in a spectrum taken by JWST's NIRSPEC for J2236+0032,   
   further supporting the detection of the host galaxy.   
      
   Analyses of the host galaxy photometry found that these two quasar host   
   galaxies are massive, measuring 130 and 34 billion times the mass of   
   the Sun, respectively. Measuring the speed of the turbulent gas in the   
   vicinity of the quasars from the NIRSPEC spectra suggests that the black   
   holes that power them are also massive, measuring 1.4 and 0.2 billion   
   times the mass of the Sun. The ratio of the black hole mass to host   
   galaxy mass is similar to those of galaxies in the more recent past,   
   suggesting that the relationship between black holes and their hosts   
   was already in place 860 million years after the Big Bang.   
      
   Ding, Silverman, Onoue and their colleagues will continue this study   
   with a larger sample using scheduled Cycle 1 JWST observations, which   
   will then further constrain models for the coevolution of black holes   
   and their host galaxies. The team recently learned that they have been   
   awarded additional time for JWST in its next cycle to study the host   
   galaxy of J2236+0032 in much more detail.   
      
   Details of this study will be published in Nature on June 28.   
      
       * RELATED_TOPICS   
             o Space_&_Time   
                   # Black_Holes # Galaxies # Astrophysics # Astronomy #   
                   Cosmology # Big_Bang # Space_Telescopes # NASA   
       * RELATED_TERMS   
             o Quasar o Spitzer_space_telescope o Radio_telescope   
             o Big_Bang o Galaxy o Big_Bang_nucleosynthesis   
             o Cosmic_microwave_background_radiation o   
             Compton_Gamma_Ray_Observatory   
      
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   Story Source: Materials provided by   
   Kavli_Institute_for_the_Physics_and_Mathematics_of_the Universe. Note:   
   Content may be edited for style and length.   
      
      
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   Related Multimedia:   
       * Quasar_and_the_host_galaxy   
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   Journal Reference:   
      1. Xuheng Ding, Masafusa Onoue, John D. Silverman, Yoshiki Matsuoka,   
      Takuma   
         Izumi, Michael A. Strauss, Knud Jahnke, Camryn L. Phillips,   
         Junyao Li, Marta Volonteri, Zoltan Haiman, Irham Taufik Andika,   
         Kentaro Aoki, Shunsuke Baba, Rebekka Bieri, Sarah E. I. Bosman,   
         Connor Bottrell, Anna- Christina Eilers, Seiji Fujimoto,   
         Melanie Habouzit, Masatoshi Imanishi, Kohei Inayoshi, Kazushi   
         Iwasawa, Nobunari Kashikawa, Toshihiro Kawaguchi, Kotaro Kohno,   
         Chien-Hsiu Lee, Alessandro Lupi, Jianwei Lyu, Tohru Nagao, Roderik   
         Overzier, Jan-Torge Schindler, Malte Schramm, Kazuhiro Shimasaku,   
         Yoshiki Toba, Benny Trakhtenbrot, Maxime Trebitsch, Tommaso Treu,   
         Hideki Umehata, Bram P. Venemans, Marianne Vestergaard, Fabian   
         Walter, Feige Wang, Jinyi Yang. Detection of stellar light from   
         quasar host galaxies at redshifts above 6. Nature, 2023; DOI:   
         10.1038/s41586-023-06345-5   
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   Link to news story:   
   https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/06/230628125125.htm   
      
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