English

Quasar Luminosity Function at z = 7

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2023-06-14 v1

Abstract

We present the quasar luminosity function (LF) at z=7z = 7, measured with 35 spectroscopically confirmed quasars at 6.55<z<7.156.55 < z < 7.15. The sample of 22 quasars from the Subaru High-zz Exploration of Low-Luminosity Quasars (SHELLQs) project, combined with 13 brighter quasars in the literature, covers an unprecedentedly wide range of rest-frame ultraviolet magnitudes over 28<M1450<23-28 < M_{1450} < -23. We found that the binned LF flattens significantly toward the faint end populated by the SHELLQs quasars. A maximum likelihood fit to a double power-law model has a break magnitude M1450=25.600.30+0.40M^*_{1450} = -25.60^{+0.40}_{-0.30}, a characteristic density Φ=1.350.30+0.47\Phi^* = 1.35^{+0.47}_{-0.30} Gpc3^{-3} mag1^{-1}, and a bright-end slope β=3.340.57+0.49\beta = -3.34^{+0.49}_{-0.57}, when the faint-end slope is fixed to α=1.2\alpha = -1.2 as observed at z6z \le 6. The overall LF shape remains remarkably similar from z=4z = 4 to 77, while the amplitude decreases substantially toward higher redshifts, with a clear indication of an accelerating decline at z6z \ge 6. The estimated ionizing photon density, 1048.2±0.110^{48.2 \pm 0.1} s1^{-1} Mpc3^{-3}, is less than 1 % of the critical rate to keep the intergalactic medium ionized at z=7z = 7, and thus indicates that quasars are not a major contributor to cosmic reionization.

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Cite

@article{arxiv.2305.11225,
  title  = {Quasar Luminosity Function at z = 7},
  author = {Yoshiki Matsuoka and Masafusa Onoue and Kazushi Iwasawa and Michael A. Strauss and Nobunari Kashikawa and Takuma Izumi and Tohru Nagao and Masatoshi Imanishi and Masayuki Akiyama and John D. Silverman and Naoko Asami and James Bosch and Hisanori Furusawa and Tomotsugu Goto and James E. Gunn and Yuichi Harikane and Hiroyuki Ikeda and Kohei Inayoshi and Rikako Ishimoto and Toshihiro Kawaguchi and Satoshi Kikuta and Kotaro Kohno and Yutaka Komiyama and Chien-Hsiu Lee and Robert H. Lupton and Takeo Minezaki and Satoshi Miyazaki and Hitoshi Murayama and Atsushi J. Nishizawa and Masamune Oguri and Yoshiaki Ono and Taira Oogi and Masami Ouchi and Paul A. Price and Hiroaki Sameshima and Naoshi Sugiyama and Philip J. Tait and Masahiro Takada and Ayumi Takahashi and Tadafumi Takata and Masayuki Tanaka and Yoshiki Toba and Shiang-Yu Wang and Takuji Yamashita},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2305.11225},
  year   = {2023}
}

Comments

The Astrophysical Journal Letters, in press

R2 v1 2026-06-28T10:38:35.758Z