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Luminous z ≥ 7 quasars provide direct probes of the evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the intergalactic medium (IGM) during the epoch of reionization (EoR). The Lyα damping wing absorption imprinted by neutral hydrogen in the IGM can be detected in a single EoR quasar spectrum, allowing the measurement of the IGM neutral fraction toward that line of sight. However, damping wing features have only been detected in two z > 7 quasars in previous studies. In this paper, we present new high-quality optical and near-infrared spectroscopy of the z = 7.00 quasar DES J025216.64–050331.8 obtained with Keck/Near-Infrared Echellette Spectrometer and Gemini/GMOS. By using the Mg ii single-epoch virial method, we find that it hosts a SMBH accreting at an Eddington ratio of λEdd = 0.7 ± 0.1, consistent with the values seen in other luminous z ∼ 7 quasars. Furthermore, the Lyα region of the spectrum exhibits a strong damping wing absorption feature. The lack of associated metal absorption in the quasar spectrum indicates that this absorption is imprinted by a neutral IGM. Using a state-of-the-art model developed by Davies et al., we measure a volume-averaged neutral hydrogen fraction at z = 7 of within 68% (95%) confidence intervals when marginalizing over quasar lifetimes of. This is the highest IGM neutral fraction yet measured using reionization-era quasar spectra. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the X-ray properties of three interacting luminous infrared galaxy systems. In one of these systems, IRAS 18329+5950, we resolve two separate sources. A second and third source, IRAS 19354+4559 and IRAS 20550+1656, have only a single X-ray source detected. We compare the observed emission to point-spread function (PSF) profiles and determine that they are all consistent with the PSF, albeit with large uncertainties for some of our sources. We then model the spectra to determine soft (0.5-2 keV) and hard (2-10 keV) luminosities for the resolved sources and compare these to relationships found in the literature between infrared and X-ray luminosities for starburst galaxies. We obtain luminosities (0.5-10 keV) ranging from 1.7 to 7.3 × 1041 erg s–1 for our systems. These X-ray luminosities are consistent with predictions for star-formation-dominated sources and thus are most likely due to starbursts, but we cannot conclusively rule out active galactic nuclei. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]