• DOI:10.1088/2041-8205/805/1/L8
• Corpus ID: 118501654

BRIGHT [C II] 158 μm EMISSION IN A QUASAR HOST GALAXY AT z = 6.54

@article{Baados2015BRIGHTI,
  title={BRIGHT [C II] 158 $\mu$m EMISSION IN A QUASAR HOST GALAXY AT z = 6.54},
  author={Eduardo Ba{\~n}ados and Roberto Decarli and Fred Walter and Bram P. Venemans and Emanuele Paolo Farina and X. L. Fan},
  journal={The Astrophysical Journal Letters},
  year={2015},
  volume={805}
}

• E. Bañados, R. Decarli, +3 authors X. Fan
• Published 20 April 2015
• Physics
• The Astrophysical Journal Letters

The [C ii] 158 μm fine-structure line is known to trace regions of active star formation and is the main coolant of the cold, neutral atomic medium. In this Letter, we report a strong detection of the [C ii] line in the host galaxy of the brightest quasar known at z > 6.5 ?> , the Pan-STARRS1 selected quasar PSO J036.5078+03.0498 (hereafter P036+03), using the IRAM NOEMA millimeter interferometer. Its [C ii] and total far-infrared luminosities are ( 5.8 ± 0.7 ) × 10 9 ?> L ⊙ ?> and ( 7.6 ± 1.5 ) × 10 12 ?> L ⊙ ?> , respectively. This results in an L [ C II ] / L TIR ?> ratio of ∼ 0.8 × 10 − 3 ?> , which is at the high end of those found for active galaxies, though it is lower than the average found in typical main-sequence galaxies at z ∼ 0 ?> . We also report a tentative additional line that we identify as a blended emission from the 3 22 − 3 13 ?> and 5 23 − 4 32 ?> H2O transitions. If confirmed, this would be the most distant detection of water emission to date. P036+03 rivals the current prototypical luminous J1148+5251 quasar at z = 6.42, in both rest-frame UV and [C ii] luminosities. Given its brightness and because it is visible from both hemispheres (unlike J1148+5251), P036+03 has the potential of becoming an important laboratory for the study of star formation and of the interstellar medium only ∼800 Myr after the Big Bang.