Dust-free quasars in the early Universe

Linhua Jiang (), Xiaohui Fan, W. N. Brandt, Chris L. Carilli, Eiichi Egami, Dean C. Hines, Jaron D. Kurk, Gordon T. Richards, Yue Shen, Michael A. Strauss, Marianne Vestergaard and Fabian Walter
Additional contact information
Linhua Jiang: Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA
Xiaohui Fan: Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA
W. N. Brandt: Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, Pennsylvania 16802, USA
Chris L. Carilli: National Radio Astronomy Observatory, PO Box 0, Socorro, New Mexico 87801, USA
Eiichi Egami: Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA
Dean C. Hines: Space Science Institute, 4750 Walnut Street, Suite 205, Boulder, Colorado 80301, USA
Jaron D. Kurk: Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany
Gordon T. Richards: Drexel University, 3141 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19104, USA
Yue Shen: Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, MS-51, Cambridge, Massachusetts 02138, USA
Michael A. Strauss: Peyton Hall, Princeton, New Jersey 08544, USA
Marianne Vestergaard: Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, Arizona 85721, USA
Fabian Walter: Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany

Nature, 2010, vol. 464, issue 7287, 380-383

Abstract: Catching quasars early More than 40 quasars have been discovered at redshifts of z ≈ 6, at an epoch when the Universe was less than a billion years old or just 7% of its current age. Surprisingly, the properties of these distant quasars seem almost indistinguishable from those at lower redshifts, suggesting that they are evolved objects. Now with the discovery of a second z ≈ 6 quasar without hot-dust emission, and evidence from others that hot dust accumulates in tandem with the growth of the central black hole, comes confirmation that these extremely distant quasars are indeed less evolved than their lower-redshift equivalents. The two dust-free quasars may be first-generation quasars born in dust-free environments that are too young to have formed a detectable amount of hot dust around them.

Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1038/nature08877

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