1. A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): Broad-line AGN at $z=4-5$ revealed by JWST/NIRCam WFSS
- Author
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Lin, Xiaojing, Wang, Feige, Fan, Xiaohui, Cai, Zheng, Champagne, Jaclyn B., Sun, Fengwu, Volonteri, Marta, Yang, Jinyi, Hennawi, Joseph F., Bañados, Eduardo, Barth, Aaron, Eilers, Anna-Christina, Farina, Emanuele Paolo, Liu, Weizhe, Jin, Xiangyu, Jun, Hyunsung D., Lupi, Alessandro, Kakiichi, Koki, Mazzucchelli, Chiara, Onoue, Masafusa, Pan, Zhiwei, Pizzati, Elia, Rojas-Ruiz, Sofía, Schindler, Jan-Torge, Trakhtenbrot, Benny, Shen, Yue, Trebitsch, Maxime, Zhuang, Ming-Yang, Endsley, Ryan, Meyer, Romain A., Li, Zihao, Li, Mingyu, Pudoka, Maria, Tee, Wei Leong, Wu, Yunjing, and Zhang, Haowen
- Subjects
Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies ,Astrophysics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics - Abstract
Low-luminosity AGNs with low-mass black holes (BHs) in the early universe are fundamental to understanding the BH growth and their co-evolution with the host galaxies. Utilizing JWST NIRCam Wide Field Slitless Spectroscopy (WFSS), we perform a systematic search for broad-line ${\rm H\alpha}$ emitters (BHAEs) at $z\approx 4-5$ in 25 fields of the ASPIRE (A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era) project, covering a total area of 275 arcmin$^2$. We identify 16 BHAEs with FWHM of the broad components spanning from $\sim$ 1000 km s$^{-1}$ to 3000 km s$^{-1}$. Assuming the broad linewidths arise due to Doppler broadening around BHs, the implied BH masses range from $10^7$ to $10^{8}~M_\odot$, with broad ${\rm H\alpha}$-converted bolometric luminosity of $10^{44.5}-10^{45.5}$ erg s$^{-1}$ and Eddington ratios of $0.07-0.47$. The spatially extended structure of the F200W stacked image may trace the stellar light from the host galaxies. The ${\rm H\alpha}$ luminosity function indicates an increasing AGN fraction towards the higher ${\rm H\alpha}$ luminosities. We find possible evidence for clustering of BHAEs: two sources are at the same redshift with a projected separation of 519 kpc; one BHAE appears as a composite system residing in an overdense region with three close companion ${\rm H\alpha}$ emitters. Three BHAEs exhibit blueshifted absorption troughs indicative of the presence of high-column-density gas. We find the broad-line and photometrically selected BHAE samples exhibit different distributions in the optical continuum slopes, which can be attributed to their different selection methods. The ASPIRE broad-line ${\rm H\alpha}$ sample provides a good database for future studies of faint AGN populations at high redshift., Comment: 19 pages, 13 figures, 4 tables. Accepted by the ApJ
- Published
- 2024