Broad-line AGNs at 3.5 < z < 6: The Black Hole Mass Function and a Connection with Little Red Dots

Broad-line AGNs at 3.5 < z < 6: The Black Hole Mass Function and a Connection with Little Red Dots

We present a sample of 62 H α detected broad-line active galactic nuclei (BLAGNs) at redshifts 3.5 < z < 6.8 using data from the CEERS and RUBIES surveys. We select these sources directly from JWST/NIRSpec G395M/F290LP spectra. We use a multistep pre-selection and Bayesian fitting to ensure a...

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Main Authors: Anthony J. Taylor, Steven L. Finkelstein, Dale D. Kocevski, Junehyoung Jeon, Volker Bromm, Ricardo O. Amorín, Pablo Arrabal Haro, Bren E. Backhaus, Micaela B. Bagley, Eduardo Banados, Rachana Bhatawdekar, Madisyn Brooks, Antonello Calabrò, Óscar A. Chávez Ortiz, Yingjie Cheng, Nikko J. Cleri, Justin W. Cole, Kelcey Davis, Mark Dickinson, Callum Donnan, James S. Dunlop, Richard S. Ellis, Vital Fernández, Adriano Fontana, Seiji Fujimoto, Mauro Giavalisco, Andrea Grazian, Jingsong Guo, Nimish P. Hathi, Benne W. Holwerda, Michaela Hirschmann, Kohei Inayoshi, Jeyhan S. Kartaltepe, Yana Khusanova, Anton M. Koekemoer, Vasily Kokorev, Rebecca L. Larson, Gene C. K. Leung, Ray A. Lucas, Derek J. McLeod, Lorenzo Napolitano, Masafusa Onoue, Fabio Pacucci, Casey Papovich, Pablo G. Pérez-González, Nor Pirzkal, Rachel S. Somerville, Jonathan R. Trump, Stephen M. Wilkins, L. Y. Aaron Yung, Haowen Zhang
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: IOP Publishing 2025-01-01
Series:The Astrophysical Journal
Subjects:
Supermassive black holes
Quasars
Active galactic nuclei
Broad band photometry
High-redshift galaxy clusters
High-redshift galaxies
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/add15b
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Summary:We present a sample of 62 H α detected broad-line active galactic nuclei (BLAGNs) at redshifts 3.5 < z < 6.8 using data from the CEERS and RUBIES surveys. We select these sources directly from JWST/NIRSpec G395M/F290LP spectra. We use a multistep pre-selection and Bayesian fitting to ensure a high-quality sample of sources with broad Balmer lines and narrow forbidden lines. We compute rest-frame ultraviolet and optical spectral slopes for these objects, and determine that 21 BLAGNs in our sample are also little red dots (LRDs). These LRD BLAGNs, when examined in aggregate, show broader H α line profiles and a higher fraction of broad-to-narrow component H α emission than non-LRD BLAGNs. We find that ∼90% of LRD BLAGNs are intrinsically reddened ( β _opt > 0), independent of contributions from emission lines to the broadband photometry. We construct the black hole (BH) mass function at 3.5 < z < 6 after computing robust completeness corrections. This BH mass function shows agreement with recent JWST-based BH mass functions, though we extend these earlier results to log ( M _BH / M _⊙ ) < 7. The derived BH mass function is consistent with theoretical models, indicating that the observed abundance of BHs in the early Universe may not be discrepant with physically motivated predictions. The BH mass function shape resembles a largely featureless power law, suggesting that signatures from BH seeding have been lost by redshift z ∼ 5–6. Finally, we compute the BLAGN UV luminosity function and find agreement with JWST-detected BLAGN samples from recent works, finding that BLAGN hosts constitute ≲10% of the total observed UV luminosity at all but the brightest luminosities.
ISSN:1538-4357

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