SHARC-II 350 micron Observations of Thermal Emission from Warm Dust in z>=5 Quasars

TL;DR

This study reports deep 350 micron observations of four high-redshift quasars, revealing significant warm dust emission and suggesting rapid dust formation in early universe quasar host galaxies.

Contribution

First deep 350 micron observations of z>=5 quasars, demonstrating substantial warm dust presence and providing insights into dust properties and heating mechanisms at early cosmic times.

Findings

Three quasars detected at >=3 sigma significance

FIR emission is 5-10 times stronger than local quasar expectations

Dust temperatures range from 39 to 52 K

Abstract

We present observations of four z>= SDSS quasars at 350 micron with the SHARC-II bolometer camera on the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory. These are among the deepest observations that have been made by SHARC-II at 350 micron, and three quasars are detected at >=3 sigma significance, greatly increasing the sample of 350 micron (corresponds to rest frame wavelengths of <60 micron at z>=5), detected high-redshift quasars. The derived rest frame far-infrared (FIR) emission in the three detected sources is about five to ten times stronger than that expected from the average SED of the local quasars given the same 1450A luminosity. Combining the previous submillimeter and millimeter observations at longer wavelengths, the temperatures of the FIR-emitting warm dust from the three quasar detections are estimated to be in the range of 39 to 52 K. Additionally, the FIR-to-radio SEDs of the three 350 micron detections are consistent with the emission from typical star forming galaxies. The FIR luminosities are ~10^{13} L_solar and the dust masses are >= 10^{8}M_solar. These results confirm that huge amounts of warm dust can exist in the host galaxies of optically bright quasars as early as z~6. The universe is so young at these epochs (~1 Gyr) that a rapid dust formation mechanism is required. We estimate the size of the FIR dust emission region to be about a few kpc, and further provide a comparison of the SEDs among different kinds of dust emitting sources to investigate the dominant dust heating mechanism.