A lack of Lyman alpha emitters within 5Mpc of a luminous quasar in an overdensity at z=6.9: Potential evidence of negative quasar feedback at protocluster scales

Abstract

High-redshift quasars are thought to live in the densest regions of space, which should be made evident by an overdensity of galaxies around them. However, campaigns to identify these overdensities by searching for Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) and Lyman alpha emitters (LAEs) have had mixed results. These may be explained by either the small field of view of some of the experiments, the broad redshift ranges targeted by LBG searches, and the inherently high uncertainty of quasar redshifts estimated from ultraviolet emission lines, which makes it difficult to place the Ly-alpha emission line within a narrowband filter. Here, we present a 3 square degree search ($ 1000$ pMpc2) for LAEs around the $z=6.9$ quasar VIK J2348--3054 using the Dark Energy CAMera (DECam) housed on the 4m Blanco telescope, finding 38 LAEs. The systemic redshift of VIK J2348--3054 is known from ALMA CII observations and places the Ly-alpha emission line of companions within the NB964 narrowband of DECam. This is the largest field-of-view LAE search around a $z>6$ quasar conducted to date. We find that this field is sim ten times more overdense than Chandra Deep-Field South, observed previously with the same instrumental setup as well as several combined blank fields. This is strong evidence that VIK J2348--3054 resides in an overdensity of LAEs over several Mpc. Surprisingly, we find a lack of LAEs within 5 physical Mpc of the quasar and take this to most likely be evidence of quasar-suppressing star formation in its immediate vicinity. This result highlights the importance of performing overdensity searches over large areas to properly assess the density of those regions of the Universe.