A post-starburst pathway for the formation of massive galaxies and black holes at z > 6

IF 14.3 1区物理与天体物理 Q1 ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

Nature Astronomy Pub Date : 2025-08-11 DOI:10.1038/s41550-025-02628-1

Masafusa Onoue, Xuheng Ding, John D. Silverman, Yoshiki Matsuoka, Takuma Izumi, Michael A. Strauss, Charlotte Ward, Camryn L. Phillips, Kei Ito, Irham T. Andika, Kentaro Aoki, Junya Arita, Shunsuke Baba, Rebekka Bieri, Sarah E. I. Bosman, Anna-Christina Eilers, Seiji Fujimoto, Melanie Habouzit, Zoltan Haiman, Masatoshi Imanishi, Kohei Inayoshi, Kazushi Iwasawa, Knud Jahnke, Nobunari Kashikawa, Toshihiro Kawaguchi, Kotaro Kohno, Chien-Hsiu Lee, Junyao Li, Alessandro Lupi, Jianwei Lyu, Tohru Nagao, Roderik Overzier, Jan-Torge Schindler, Malte Schramm, Matthew T. Scoggins, Kazuhiro Shimasaku, Yoshiki Toba, Benny Trakhtenbrot, Maxime Trebitsch, Tommaso Treu, Hideki Umehata, Bram Venemans, Marianne Vestergaard, Marta Volonteri, Fabian Walter, Feige Wang, Jinyi Yang, Haowen Zhang

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Abstract

Understanding the rapid formation of supermassive black holes in the early Universe requires insights into stellar mass growth in host galaxies. Here we present NIRSpec rest-frame optical spectra and NIRCam imaging from JWST of two galaxies at z > 6, both hosting moderate-luminosity quasars. These galaxies exhibit Balmer absorption lines, like low-redshift post-starburst galaxies. Our analyses of the medium-resolution spectra and multiband photometry show that the bulk of the stellar mass (log(M_*/M_☉) ≥ 10.6) formed in starburst episodes at redshift 9 and 7. One of the galaxies shows a clear Balmer break and lacks spatially resolved Hα emission. It falls well below the star-formation main sequence at z = 6, indicating quiescence. The other is transitioning to quiescence; together, these massive galaxies are among the most distant post-starburst systems known. The blueshifted wings of the quasar [O iii] emission lines indicate quasar-driven outflow, which possibly influences star formation. Direct stellar velocity dispersion measurements reveal that one galaxy follows the local black hole mass versus σ_* relation whereas the other is overmassive. The existence of massive post-starburst galaxies hosting billion-solar-mass black holes in short-lived quasar phases indicates that supermassive black holes and host galaxies played a principal role in each other’s rapid early formation.

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z >6大质量星系和黑洞形成的星暴后路径

要理解早期宇宙中超大质量黑洞的快速形成，就需要深入了解宿主星系中恒星质量的增长。在这里，我们展示了来自JWST的两个星系的NIRSpec静帧光谱和NIRCam成像，这两个星系都有中等亮度的类星体。这些星系表现出巴尔默吸收线，就像星暴后的低红移星系。我们对中分辨率光谱和多波段光度法的分析表明，大部分恒星质量（log（M*/M☉）≥10.6）形成于红移9和7的星暴事件。其中一个星系显示出明显的巴尔默断裂，缺乏空间分辨的Hα发射。它远远低于z = 6的恒星形成主序列，表明处于静止状态。另一个是过渡到静止；总之，这些巨大的星系是已知的最遥远的后星暴系统。类星体[O iii]发射线的蓝移翼表明类星体驱动的流出，这可能影响恒星的形成。直接的恒星速度色散测量表明，一个星系遵循局部黑洞质量与σ*的关系，而另一个星系则是超大质量的。恒星爆发后的大质量星系在短暂的类星体阶段拥有数十亿太阳质量的黑洞，这表明超大质量黑洞和宿主星系在彼此的快速早期形成中发挥了主要作用。

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来源期刊

Nature Astronomy Physics and Astronomy-Astronomy and Astrophysics

CiteScore

19.50

自引率

2.80%

发文量

252

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