Abstract
The detection of starlight from the host galaxies of quasars during the reionization epoch (z > 6) has been elusive, even with deep Hubble Space Telescope observations1,2. The current highest redshift quasar host detected3, at z = 4.5, required the magnifying effect of a foreground lensing galaxy. Low-luminosity quasars4,5,6 from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP)7 mitigate the challenge of detecting their underlying, previously undetected host galaxies. Here we report rest-frame optical images and spectroscopy of two HSC-SSP quasars at z > 6 with the JWST. Using near-infrared camera imaging at 3.6 and 1.5 μm and subtracting the light from the unresolved quasars, we find that the host galaxies are massive (stellar masses of 13 × and 3.4 × 1010 M☉, respectively), compact and disc-like. Near-infrared spectroscopy at medium resolution shows stellar absorption lines in the more massive quasar, confirming the detection of the host. Velocity-broadened gas in the vicinity of these quasars enables measurements of their black hole masses (1.4 × 109 and 2.0 × 108 M☉, respectively). Their location in the black hole mass–stellar mass plane is consistent with the distribution at low redshift, suggesting that the relation between black holes and their host galaxies was already in place less than a billion years after the Big Bang.
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Data availability
The JWST data are available in the MAST and can be accessed through https://archive.stsci.edu/doi/resolve/resolve.html?doi=10.17909/2z59-3v32 (JWST GO 1967) after a 12-month exclusive access period. Reduced quasar NIRCam image cut-outs are also available from the corresponding author upon request or at https://github.com/dartoon/publication/tree/main/SHELLQs_J2236_J2255_data.
Code availability
The JWST data were processed with the JWST calibration pipeline (https://jwst-pipeline.readthedocs.io). Public tools were used for data analysis: galight12, galfit35 and PyQSOFit42.
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Acknowledgements
We thank T. Morishita and L. Yang for help with the gsf and Bagpipes packages. We thank Y. Fu for his help on the use of QSOFitMORE. We thank X. Fan, L. Ho and V. Bennert for useful discussions. This work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA JWST. The data were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract no. NAS 5-03127 for JWST. These observations are associated with programme no. 1967. Support for programme no. 1967 was provided by NASA through a grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract no. NAS 5-03127. This paper is based on data collected at the Subaru Telescope and retrieved from the HSC data archive system, which is operated by the Subaru Telescope and Astronomy Data Center at NAOJ. Data analysis was in part carried out with the cooperation of the Center for Computational Astrophysics (CfCA), NAOJ. We are honoured and grateful for the opportunity of observing the Universe from Maunakea, which has cultural, historical and natural significance in Hawaii. This work was supported by World Premier International Research Center Initiative (WPI), MEXT, Japan. X.D., J.S., Y.M., T.I., K.K. and H.U. are supported by the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) KAKENHI grant nos. JP22K14071, JP18H01251, JP22H01262, JP17H04830, JP21H04494, JP20K14531, JP17H06130 and JP20H01953. F.W., S.E.I.B., B.T., J.T.S. and M.O. acknowledge support from the European Research Council (ERC) grant nos. 740246, 885301 and 950533. M.O. and K.I. acknowledge support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China grant nos. 12150410307 and 12073003. Y.M. acknowledges support from the Mitsubishi Foundation grant no. 30140. S.F. acknowledges support from NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant no. HST-HF2-51505.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Incorporated, under NASA contract no. NAS 5-26555. Z.H. acknowledges support from the National Science Foundation grant no. AST-2006176. K.I. acknowledges support by the Spanish MCIN under grant no. PID2019-105510GB-C33/AEI/10.13039/501100011033. A.L. acknowledges funding from MIUR under the grant no. PRIN 2017-MB8AEZ. B.T. acknowledges support from the Israel Science Foundation (grant no. 1849/19) and from the ERC under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement no. 950533). M.T. acknowledges support from the NWO grant no. 0.16.VIDI.189.162 (‘ODIN’). M.V. acknowledges support from the Independent Research Fund Denmark by grant no. DFF 8021-00130.
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X.D. led the analysis of the quasar decomposition, simulation test, SED fitting and preparation of the manuscript. M.O. reduced the NIRCam and NIRSpec data. He also led the spectroscopic data analysis and wrote relevant sections. These first two authors equally contributed to this work. J.D.S. contributed to the NIRCam data analysis and preparation of the manuscript. C.L.P. performed the NIRSpec 2D spectroscopic analysis and evaluated the strength of the extended [O iii] emission. J.L. constructed the mock quasar sample at z = 6.4, which was used to assess the redshift evolution of the black hole–stellar mass relation. M.O., X.D., J.D.S., Y.M., T.I., M.A.S. and K.J. led the project design and management, also developing the main interpretation of the results. All coauthors contributed to the discussion of the presented results and the preparation of the manuscript.
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Extended data figures and tables
Extended Data Fig. 1 Distribution of known quasars at redshift z > 5.8.
The y-axis indicates the absolute magnitudes at rest-frame 1450 Å. The two target quasars in this work are shown in red (J2236+0032 at z = 6.40, and J2255+0251 at z = 6.34), while other low-luminosity quasars from the HSC-SSP are shown in blue. The JWST 12 Cycle 1 targets in GO #1967 are highlighted with open circles. Other known quasars are shown in black.
Extended Data Fig. 2 Quasar-subtracted images of J2236+0032 based on 2D decomposition by two independent codes.
The inferred host magnitude from each code is indicated. For this comparison, the point_source_supersampling_factor is set to 2 for galight. The same PSF is used for this comparison. Coordinates are in pixel units; the pixel scales for F356W and F150W are \({0.}^{{\prime\prime} }0315\) and \({0.}^{{\prime\prime} }0153\), respectively.
Extended Data Fig. 3 Testing the effect of PSF star mismatch on the inferred presence of a host galaxy.
Top: The residuals using the top five PSF star pairs for J2255+0251 in F356W (10 of 20 are shown) – we see no evidence for extended residual emission. Using these 20 PSF residual maps, the PSF mismatch standard deviation is calculated for each pixel. Bottom: Maps of host galaxy signal (i.e., data − point-source model) divided by the standard deviation (as indicated by the color scale) for both targets in two filters. The host is clearly detected in all cases except for J2255+0251 in F150W.
Extended Data Fig. 4 Distribution of the inferred host magnitude from simulations with and without a host present.
When the host of J2255+0251 is added into the mock image in the simulations, the derived host magnitude distribution based on 100 realizations (dark orange) is consistent with the input true value, with an r.m.s. scatter of 0.12 mag. When the host light is not included in the mock image and we still fit the host light in our model, we infer host magnitudes with a broad distribution (tan histogram), centered two magnitudes fainter.
Extended Data Fig. 5 The SED inference using the host galaxy two-band photometry based on gsf.
Top: The red data points with errors indicate the inferred host fluxes. The gray region represents the 1σ range of variation in SED templates obtained through MCMC, while the black line represents the median SED template. The blue diamonds indicate the predictions using this median template. Bottom: The distribution of the host galaxy SED properties using MCMC inference.
Extended Data Fig. 6 Probability distribution of the evolution parameter based on observations of our two quasars.
The evolution parameter γ is inferred as MBH/M* ∝ (1+z)γ. The 68% confidence interval in γ lies between −0.40 and +0.84. The black dashed line indicates the 50 percentile position (+0.21).
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Ding, X., Onoue, M., Silverman, J.D. et al. Detection of stellar light from quasar host galaxies at redshifts above 6. Nature 621, 51–55 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06345-5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-023-06345-5
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