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The multiple merger assembly of a hyperluminous obscured quasar at redshift 4.6

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posted on 2019-04-04, 10:50 authored by T Díaz-Santos, RJ Assef, AW Blain, M Aravena, D Stern, C-W Tsai, P Eisenhardt, J Wu, HD Jun, K Dibert, H Inami, G Lansbury, F Leclercq
Galaxy mergers and gas accretion from the cosmic web drove the growth of galaxies and their central black holes at early epochs. We report spectroscopic imaging of a multiple merger event in the most luminous known galaxy, WISE J224607.56-052634.9 (W2246-0526), a dust-obscured quasar at redshift 4.6, 1.3 billion years after the Big Bang. Far-infrared dust continuum observations show three galaxy companions around W2246-0526 with disturbed morphologies, connected by streams of dust likely produced by the dynamical interaction. The detection of tidal dusty bridges shows that W2246-0526 is accreting its neighbors, suggesting that merger activity may be a dominant mechanism through which the most luminous galaxies simultaneously obscure and feed their central supermassive black holes.

Funding

T.D.-S. acknowledges support from ALMA-CONYCIT project 31130005 and Fondo Nacional de Desarrollo Científico y Tecnológico (FONDECYT) project 1151239. R.J.A. acknowledges support from FONDECYT 1151408. The work of C-W.T., J.W., P.E., and D.S. was carried out at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under a contract with NASA, and supported by grant ADAP13-0092. M.A. acknowledges partial support from FONDECYT through grant 1140099. J.W. acknowledges support from the Ministry of Science and Technology of China through grant 2016YFA0400702 and National Natural Science Foundation of China 11673029. This research was supported by the Basic Science Research Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (NRF) funded by the Ministry of Education (NRF-2017R1A6A3A04005158).

History

Citation

Science, 2018, 362 (6418), pp. 1034-1036

Author affiliation

/Organisation/COLLEGE OF SCIENCE AND ENGINEERING/Department of Physics and Astronomy

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  • AM (Accepted Manuscript)

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Science

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American Association for the Advancement of Science

eissn

1095-9203

Acceptance date

2018-10-26

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2018

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2019-04-04

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http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6418/1034http://science.sciencemag.org/content/362/6418/1034

Language

en

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