The First High Redshift Quasar from Pan-STARRS

TL;DR

This paper reports the discovery of the first high-redshift quasar from Pan-STARRS1, demonstrating the survey's capability to identify distant quasars with significant implications for understanding early universe black holes.

Contribution

It presents the first high-redshift quasar identified by Pan-STARRS1, showcasing the survey's effectiveness in discovering distant quasars and paving the way for future high-redshift quasar searches.

Findings

Redshift of 5.73 confirmed spectroscopically.

Black hole mass estimated at 6.9 billion solar masses.

Potential to discover over a hundred high-redshift quasars.

Abstract

We present the discovery of the first high redshift (z > 5.7) quasar from the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 1 (Pan-STARRS1 or PS1). This quasar was initially detected as an i dropoutout in PS1, confirmed photometrically with the SAO Widefield InfraRed Camera (SWIRC) at Arizona's Multiple Mirror Telescope (MMT) and the Gamma-Ray Burst Optical/Near-Infrared Detector (GROND) at the MPG 2.2 m telescope in La Silla. The quasar was verified spectroscopically with the the MMT Spectrograph, Red Channel and the Cassegrain Twin Spectrograph (TWIN) at the Calar Alto 3.5 m telescope. It has a redshift of 5.73, an AB z magnitude of 19.4, a luminosity of 3.8 x 10^47 erg/s and a black hole mass of 6.9 x 10^9 solar masses. It is a Broad Absorption Line quasar with a prominent Ly-beta peak and a very blue continuum spectrum. This quasar is the first result from the PS1 high redshift quasar search that is projected to discover more than a hundred i dropout quasars, and could potentially find more than 10 z dropout (z > 6.8) quasars.