English

Molecular gas and dust around a radio-quiet quasar at redshift 4.7

Astrophysics 2009-10-28 v1

Abstract

We report the detection of emission from dust and carbon monoxide in the radio-quiet quasar BR1202--0725 at redshift z=4.7. Maps of these emissions reveal two objects separated by a few arc seconds, which could indicate either the presence of a companion to the quasar or gravitational lensing of the quasar itself. Regardless of the precise interpretation of the maps, the detection of carbon monoxide confirms the presence of a large mass of molecular gas in one of the most distant galaxies known, and shows that conditions conducive to huge bursts of star formation existed in the early Universe.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/9608006,
  title  = {Molecular gas and dust around a radio-quiet quasar at redshift 4.7},
  author = {Alain Omont and Patrick Petitjean and Stephane Guilloteau and Richard G. McMahon and P. M. Solomon and Emmanuel Pecontal},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/9608006},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

14 pages, 1 table, 2 figures, LaTex (aas2pp4.sty, psfig.sty), also available at http://www.ast.cam.ac.uk/~rgm