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The James Webb Space Telescope has captured images of two early cosmic quasars, shedding light on the relationship between black holes and their host galaxies. This breakthrough suggests that the mass ratios observed in more recent galaxies were already present less than a billion years after the Big Bang.
Recent observations by JWST of two quasars from the early Universe reveal important insights into the early relationship between black holes and their galaxies, mirroring mass ratios seen in the more recent Universe .
New images from the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) show starlight from two massive galaxies hosting actively growing black holes (quasars), seen less than a billion years after the Big Bang. revealed for the first time. The black hole’s mass is nearly 1 billion times that of the Sun, and the mass of its host galaxy is almost 100 times larger, a ratio similar to those found in the recent Universe. The powerful combination of the Subaru telescope’s wide-field surveys and his JWST has opened new avenues for studying the distant universe, a recent study reports. Nature.
Observations of supermassive black holes have attracted the attention of astronomers in recent years. The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) has begun imaging the shadow of a black hole at the center of a galaxy. The 2020 Nobel Prize in Physics was awarded for observing the motion of stars at the center of the universe. milky way. Although the existence of such giant black holes is certain, no one knows their origin.
Astronomers report that a black hole of 1 billion solar masses existed within the first billion years of the universe. How could these black holes become so large when the universe was so young? Even more puzzling, observations in the local universe show that the masses of supermassive black holes and their It has been shown that there is a clear relationship between the galaxy and the much larger galaxy in which it exists. Galaxies and black holes are completely different in size, but which comes first, the black hole or the galaxy? This is a cosmic-scale “chicken-and-egg” problem.
![HSC J2236+0032](https://scitechdaily.com/images/HSC-J22360032-777x255.jpg)
JWST NIRCam 3.6 μm image of HSC J2236+0032. Zoomed-out image, quasar image, and host galaxy image after quasar light subtraction (from left to right). Image scale is shown in each panel in light years.Credit: Ding, Onoue, Silverman et al.
An international team of researchers led by Masafusa Onoe, a Kavli astrophysics researcher at the Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (KIAA) at Peking University, and Ding Xuheng, a researcher at the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), and Kavli IPMU Professor John Silverman began answering this question this way: james webb space telescope (JWST), a 6.5 meter space telescope developed through international cooperation. NASA, european space agency (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA), it was launched in December 2021.
While quasars are bright, their host galaxies are dark, making it difficult for researchers to detect the galaxy’s dim light in the quasar’s glare, especially at great distances. “Finding a quasar’s host galaxy at a redshift of 6 is like trying to spot fireflies at a breathtaking fireworks display while wearing foggy glasses. The host galaxy is incredibly dim. , the image resolution is very limited. hubble space telescopeTherefore, it is very difficult to reveal its hidden beauty,” says Shuhen Din.
![James Webb Space Telescope Rendering](https://scitechdaily.com/images/James-Webb-Space-Telescope-Rendering-777x583.jpg)
An artist’s concept for NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope.Credit: NASA, ESA, Northrop Grumman
The research team observed two quasars with JWST, HSC J2236+0032 and HSC J2255+0251, at redshifts of 6.40 and 6.34, which were the same when the universe was about 860 million years old. These two quasars were originally discovered during a wide-field survey of the 8.2-meter-tall Subaru telescope, and the research team has identified more than 160 quasars to date. The relatively low luminosities of these quasars make them prime targets for measuring the properties of their host galaxies, and their successful detection marks the first time starlight has ever been detected within a quasar. represents the earliest period.
Images of the two quasars were taken at infrared wavelengths of 3.56 and 1.50 microns using JWST’s NIRCam instrument, and after careful modeling to subtract glare from the accreting black hole, the host galaxy was revealed. Ta. The host galaxy’s stellar signature is also seen in the spectrum obtained by JWST’s NIRSpec of J2236+0032, further supporting the host galaxy detection. “I have been deeply involved in Subaru’s investigation of high-redshift quasars since I was a doctoral student at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan. I’m proud of it,” says Masafusa Onoe.
![Xuheng Ding, John Silverman, Masafusa Onoe](https://scitechdaily.com/images/Xuheng-Ding-John-Silverman-and-Masafusa-Onoue-777x437.jpg)
Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU) project researcher Ding Xuheng, Professor John Silverman, Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (PKU-KIAA) Kavli Astrophysics Fellow Masafusa Onoue (from left) .Credit: Kavli IPMU, Kavli IPMU, Masafusa Onoe
From observation, the team Black Hole The mass-to-mass of the host galaxy is similar to that seen in the more recent Universe. The results suggest that the relationship between a black hole and its host was already present within the first billion years of Earth’s existence. big bang. The research team plans to continue this work with a larger sample of distant quasars, with the aim of further constraining the coevolutionary growth history of black holes and their parent galaxies over cosmic time. These observations provide constraints on models of the coevolution of black holes and their host galaxies.
For more information about this discovery, see Researchers detect quasar host galaxies in the early universe.
Reference: “Detection of stellar light from quasar host galaxies with redshifts of 6 and above” Xuheng Ding, Masafusa Onoe, John D. Silverman, Yoshiki Matsuoka, Takuma Izumi, Michael A. Strauss, Knud Jahnke, Camryn L. Phillips, Junyao Li, Marta Bolontelli, Zoltan Heimann, Ilham Tawfik Andika, Kentaro Aoki, Shunsuke Baba, Rebecca Bieri, Sara A. Bosman, Connor Bottrell, Anna-Christina Eilers, Seiji Fujimoto, Melanie. Haboujit, Masatoshi Imanishi, Kohei Inayoshi, Kazushi Iwasawa, Norinari Kashiwagawa, Toshihiro Kawaguchi, Kotaro Kono, Chengxiu Li, Alessandro Lupi, Jiangwei Liu, Toru Nagao, Roderick Overgier, Jan-Torge Schindler, Malte Schramm, Kazuhiro Shimasaku, Yoshiki Toba, Benny Trachtenbro, Maxime Trević, Tommaso Treu, Hideki Umehata, Bram P. Venemans, Marianne Vestergaard, Fabian Walter, Feige Wang, Jingyi Yang. , June 28, 2023, Nature.
DOI: 10.1038/s41586-023-06345-5