A tiny host galaxy for the first giant black hole: $z= 7.5$ quasar in BlueTides

TL;DR

This study uses cosmological simulations to analyze the properties of a high-redshift quasar host galaxy at z=7.5, predicting its observability with JWST and revealing its compact size, high metallicity, and star formation activity.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed simulation-based characterization of a z=7.5 quasar host galaxy, including its spectral energy distribution and JWST detectability.

Findings

The host galaxy has a stellar mass of 4×10^10 M_sun and is highly metal enriched.

The galaxy is extremely compact with an effective radius of 0.35 kpc.

JWST can detect the host galaxy and nearby sources at this redshift.

Abstract

The most distant known quasar recently discovered by Ba\~nados et al. (2018) is at $z=7.5$ (690 Myr after the Big Bang), at the dawn of galaxy formation. We explore the host galaxy of the brightest quasar in the large volume cosmological hydrodynamic simulation BlueTides, which in Phase II has reached these redshifts. The brightest quasar in BlueTides has a luminosity of a $\sim$ few $10^{13} L_{\odot}$ and a black hole mass of $6.4 \times 10^{8} M_{\odot}$ at $z \sim 7.5$, comparable to the observed quasar (the only one in this large volume). The quasar resides in a rare halo of mass $M_{H} \sim 10^{12} M_{\odot}$ and has a host galaxy of stellar mass of $4 \times 10^{10}M_{\odot}$ with an ongoing (intrinsic) star formation rate of $\sim 80 M_{\odot} yr^{-1}$. The corresponding intrinsic UV magnitude of the galaxy is $-23.1$, which is roughly $2.7$ magnitudes fainter than the quasar's magnitude of $-25.9$. We find that the galaxy is highly metal enriched with a mean metallicity equal to the solar value. We derive quasar and galaxy spectral energy distribution (SED) in the mid and near infrared JWST bands. We predict a significant amount of dust attenuation in the rest-frame UV corresponding to $A_{1500} \sim 1.7$ giving an UV based SFR of $\sim 14 M_{\odot} yr^{-1}$. We present mock JWST images of the galaxy with and without central point source, in different MIRI and NIRCam filters. The host galaxy is detectable in NIRCam filters, but it is extremely compact ($R_{E}=0.35$ kpc). It will require JWST's exquisite sensitivity and resolution to separate the galaxy from the central point source. Finally within the FOV of the quasar in BlueTides there are two more sources that would be detectable by JWST.