The Astrophysical Journal Letters (Jan 2023)
UNCOVER: The Growth of the First Massive Black Holes from JWST/NIRSpec—Spectroscopic Redshift Confirmation of an X-Ray Luminous AGN at z = 10.1
- Andy D. Goulding,
- Jenny E. Greene,
- David J. Setton,
- Ivo Labbe,
- Rachel Bezanson,
- Tim B. Miller,
- Hakim Atek,
- Ákos Bogdán,
- Gabriel Brammer,
- Iryna Chemerynska,
- Sam E. Cutler,
- Pratika Dayal,
- Yoshinobu Fudamoto,
- Seiji Fujimoto,
- Lukas J. Furtak,
- Vasily Kokorev,
- Gourav Khullar,
- Joel Leja,
- Danilo Marchesini,
- Priyamvada Natarajan,
- Erica Nelson,
- Pascal A. Oesch,
- Richard Pan,
- Casey Papovich,
- Sedona H. Price,
- Pieter van Dokkum,
- Bingjie Wang,
- John R. Weaver,
- Katherine E. Whitaker,
- Adi Zitrin
Affiliations
- Andy D. Goulding
- ORCiD
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ 08544, USA ; [email protected]
- Jenny E. Greene
- ORCiD
- Department of Astrophysical Sciences, Princeton University , Princeton, NJ 08544, USA ; [email protected]
- David J. Setton
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy and PITT PACC, University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
- Ivo Labbe
- ORCiD
- Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing, Swinburne University of Technology , Melbourne, VIC 3122, Australia
- Rachel Bezanson
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy and PITT PACC, University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
- Tim B. Miller
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, Yale University , New Haven, CT 06511, USA; Center for Interdisciplinary Exploration and Research in Astrophysics (CIERA) and Department of Physics and Astronomy, Northwestern University , 1800 Sherman Ave., Evanston IL 60201, USA
- Hakim Atek
- ORCiD
- Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS, Sorbonne Université , 98bis Boulevard Arago, F-75014, Paris, France
- Ákos Bogdán
- ORCiD
- Center for Astrophysics ∣ Harvard & Smithsonian , 60 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Gabriel Brammer
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen , Jagtvej 128, København N, DK-2200, Denmark
- Iryna Chemerynska
- ORCiD
- Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS, Sorbonne Université , 98bis Boulevard Arago, F-75014, Paris, France
- Sam E. Cutler
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts , Amherst, MA 01003, USA
- Pratika Dayal
- ORCiD
- Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen , 9700 AV Groningen, The Netherlands
- Yoshinobu Fudamoto
- ORCiD
- Waseda Research Institute for Science and Engineering, Faculty of Science and Engineering, Waseda University , 3-4-1 Okubo, Shinjuku, Tokyo 169-8555, Japan; National Astronomical Observatory of Japan , 2-21-1, Osawa, Mitaka, Tokyo, Japan
- Seiji Fujimoto
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, The University of Texas at Austin , Austin, TX 78712, USA
- Lukas J. Furtak
- ORCiD
- Physics Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel
- Vasily Kokorev
- ORCiD
- Kapteyn Astronomical Institute, University of Groningen , P.O. Box 800, 9700AV Groningen, The Netherlands
- Gourav Khullar
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy and PITT PACC, University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
- Joel Leja
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA; Institute for Computational & Data Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA; Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA
- Danilo Marchesini
- ORCiD
- Physics and Astronomy Department, Tufts University , 574 Boston Ave., Medford, MA 02155, USA
- Priyamvada Natarajan
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, Yale University , New Haven, CT 06511, USA; Department of Physics, Yale University , New Haven, CT 06520, USA; Black Hole Initiative, Harvard University , 20 Garden Street, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
- Erica Nelson
- ORCiD
- Department for Astrophysical and Planetary Science, University of Colorado , Boulder, CO 80309, USA
- Pascal A. Oesch
- ORCiD
- Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen , Jagtvej 128, København N, DK-2200, Denmark; Department of Astronomy, University of Geneva , Chemin Pegasi 51, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
- Richard Pan
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Tufts University , 574 Boston Ave., Medford, MA 02155, USA
- Casey Papovich
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX, 77843-4242 USA; George P. and Cynthia Woods Mitchell Institute for Fundamental Physics and Astronomy, Texas A&M University , College Station, TX, 77843-4242 USA
- Sedona H. Price
- ORCiD
- Department of Physics and Astronomy and PITT PACC, University of Pittsburgh , Pittsburgh, PA 15260, USA
- Pieter van Dokkum
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, Yale University , New Haven, CT 06511, USA
- Bingjie Wang
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy & Astrophysics, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA; Institute for Computational & Data Sciences, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA; Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University , University Park, PA 16802, USA
- John R. Weaver
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts , Amherst, MA 01003, USA
- Katherine E. Whitaker
- ORCiD
- Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts , Amherst, MA 01003, USA; Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN) , Denmark
- Adi Zitrin
- ORCiD
- Physics Department, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev , P.O. Box 653, Beer-Sheva 84105, Israel
- DOI
- https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/acf7c5
- Journal volume & issue
-
Vol. 955,
no. 1
p. L24
Abstract
The James Webb Space Telescope is now detecting early black holes (BHs) as they transition from “seeds” to supermassive BHs. Recently, Bogdan et al. reported the detection of an X-ray luminous supermassive BH, UHZ-1, with a photometric redshift at z > 10. Such an extreme source at this very high redshift provides new insights on seeding and growth models for BHs given the short time available for formation and growth. Harnessing the exquisite sensitivity of JWST/NIRSpec, here we report the spectroscopic confirmation of UHZ-1 at z = 10.073 ± 0.002. We find that the NIRSpec/Prism spectrum is typical of recently discovered z ≈ 10 galaxies, characterized primarily by star formation features. We see no clear evidence of the powerful X-ray source in the rest-frame UV/optical spectrum, which may suggest heavy obscuration of the central BH, in line with the Compton-thick column density measured in the X-rays. We perform a stellar population fit simultaneously to the new NIRSpec spectroscopy and previously available photometry. The fit yields a stellar-mass estimate for the host galaxy that is significantly better constrained than prior photometric estimates ( ${M}_{\star }\sim {1.4}_{-0.4}^{+0.3}\times {10}^{8}$ M _⊙ ). Given the predicted BH mass ( M _BH ∼ 10 ^7 –10 ^8 M _⊙ ), the resulting ratio of M _BH / M _⋆ remains 2 to 3 orders of magnitude higher than local values, thus lending support to the heavy seeding channel for the formation of supermassive BHs within the first billion years of cosmic evolution.
Keywords
