Abstract The [Cii] 158μm emission line and the underlying far-infrared (FIR) dust continuum are important tracers for studying star formation and kinematic properties of early galaxies. We present a survey of the [Cii] emission lines and FIR continua of 31 luminous quasars atz> 6.5 using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) and the NOrthern Extended Millimeter Array at sub-arcsec resolution. This survey more than doubles the number of quasars with [Cii] and FIR observations at these redshifts and enables statistical studies of quasar host galaxies deep into the epoch of reionization. We detect [Cii] emission in 27 quasar hosts with a luminosity range ofL[CII]= (0.3–5.5) × 109L⊙and detect the FIR continuum of 28 quasar hosts with a luminosity range ofLFIR= (0.5–13.0) × 1012L⊙. BothL[CII]andLFIRare correlated (ρ≃ 0.4) with the quasar bolometric luminosity, albeit with substantial scatter. The quasar hosts detected by ALMA are clearly resolved with a median diameter of ∼5 kpc. About 40% of the quasar host galaxies show a velocity gradient in [Cii] emission, while the rest show either dispersion-dominated or disturbed kinematics. Basic estimates of the dynamical masses of the rotation-dominated host galaxies yieldMdyn= (0.1–7.5) × 1011M⊙. Considering our findings alongside those of literature studies, we found that the ratio betweenMBHandMdynis about 10 times higher than that of localMBH–Mdynrelation on average but with substantial scatter (the ratio difference ranging from ∼0.6 to 60) and large uncertainties.
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The host galaxies of radio-loud quasars at z > 5 with ALMA
The interaction between radio jets and quasar host galaxies plays a paramount role in quasar and galaxy co-evolution. However, very little is known at present about this interaction at very high−z. Here, we present new Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations in Bands 7 and 3 of six radio-loud (RL) quasar host galaxies atz > 5. We recovered [C II] 158 μm line and underlying dust continuum emission at > 2σfor five sources, while we obtained upper limits for the CO(6-5) emission line and continuum for the remaining source. At the spatial resolution of our observations (∼1″.0–1″.4), we did not recover any perturbed or extended morphologies or kinematics, which are known signatures of potential mergers. These galaxies already host large quantities of gas (∼1010M⊙), with [C II] luminosities ofL[C II] ∼ 108 − 9 L⊙and [C II]-based star formation rates of 30 − 400 M⊙yr−1. In building their radio/submillimeter (radio/submm) spectral energy distributions (SEDs), we found that in at least four cases, the 1 mm continuum intensity arises from a combination of synchrotron and dust emission. The initial estimation of synchrotron contribution at 300 GHz in these cases is of ≳10%. Assuming a scenario where the continuum emission is solely due to cold dust as an upper limit, we obtained infrared (IR) luminosities ofLIR ∼ 1011 − 12 L⊙. We compared the properties of the sources inspected here with a large collection of radio-quiet sources from the literature, as well as a sample of RL quasars from previous studies at comparable redshifts. We recovered a mild potential decrease inL[C II]for the RL sources, which might be due to a suppression of the cool gas emission due to the radio jets. We did not find any [C II] emitting companion galaxy candidate around the five RL quasars observed in Band 7. Given the depth of our dataset, this result is still consistent with what has been observed around radio-quiet quasars. Future higher spatial-resolution observations, over a broader frequency range, of high−zRL quasars hosts will allow us to further improve our understanding of the physics of these sources.
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- PAR ID:
- 10609796
- Publisher / Repository:
- A&A
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Astronomy & Astrophysics
- Volume:
- 694
- ISSN:
- 0004-6361
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- A171
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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