English

CO(7-6) and [C I](2-1) survey in z > 6 quasars

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2026-05-21 v1

Abstract

High-redshift (z6z\gtrsim6) quasars trace the earliest supermassive black holes and intense star formation, offering key laboratories for black hole-galaxy evolution at cosmic dawn. While far-infrared studies have revealed large dust reservoirs and strong [C II] emission, the physical conditions and molecular gas content of their ISM remain uncertain. We present ALMA Band 3 observations of the redshifted CO(7-6) and [C I](2-1) emission lines and dust continuum in a sample of 18 quasars at z6z \sim 6. We detected CO(7-6) in 15/18, [C I](2-1) in 6/18, and continuum in 13/18 sources. Line luminosities and continuum fluxes were used to estimate molecular gas masses from CO, [C I], and dust, and a hierarchical Bayesian cross-calibration of all four tracers yielded consistent per-source MH2M_{\rm H_2} estimates and conversion factors. Comparison with PDR and XDR model grids using the L[CII]/L[CI]L_{\rm [CII]}/L_{\rm [CI]} and LCO(76)/LTIRL_{\rm CO(7--6)}/L_{\rm TIR} ratios suggests gas densities of n>104n > 10^4 cm3^{-3} and radiation fields of G0103G_0 \sim 10^3--10410^4 for sources consistent with PDR solutions, while many quasars fall outside the model parameter space. The LCO(76)/L[CI](21)L'_{\rm CO(7-6)}/L'_{\rm [CI](2-1)} ratio indicates that a large fraction of the molecular gas resides in a warm and highly excited phase. Together these results suggest that classical PDR heating alone cannot explain the observed line ratios and that additional volumetric processes such as X-ray irradiation, turbulence and shocks, or enhanced cosmic-ray heating likely influence the excitation of the cold ISM. They demonstrate the power of multi-line diagnostics in revealing the excitation and structure of the cold ISM in early quasar host galaxies and highlight the need for joint analysis of CO, [C I], [C II], and dust emission to characterize star formation and AGN-driven heating at cosmic dawn.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.20698,
  title  = {CO(7-6) and [C I](2-1) survey in z > 6 quasars},
  author = {Fuxiang Xu and Roberto Decarli and Ran Wang and Anna Elisabetta Borea and Antonio Pensabene and Xiaohui Fan and Dominik Riechers and Eduardo Bañados and Axel Weiß and Michele Costa and Fabian Walter and Feige Wang and Jinyi Yang and Bram Venemans and Jianan Li and Emanuele Paolo Farina},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.20698},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

21 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in A&A