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Cited by 301

The DOI matches its Crossref record; 216 of the 216 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.

Formation of z∼6 Quasars from Hierarchical Galaxy Mergers

Open access
Li, Yuexing, Hernquist, Lars, Robertson, Brant, Cox, Thomas J., Hopkins, Philip F., Springel, Volker, Gao, Liang, Di Matteo, Tiziana, Zentner, Andrew R., Jenkins, Adrian, Yoshida, Naoki·2007·The Astrophysical Journal
DOI 10.1086/519297
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Abstract

The discovery of luminous quasars at redshift z ~ 6 indicates the presence of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) of mass ~10 9 M ☉ when the universe was less than 1 billion years old. This finding presents several challenges for theoretical models because whether such massive objects can form so early in the ΛCDM cosmology, the leading theory for cosmic structure formation, is an open question. Furthermore, whether the formation process requires exotic physics such as super-Eddington accretion remains undecided. Here we present the first multiscale simulations that, together with a self-regulated model for the SMBH growth, produce a luminous quasar at z ~ 6.5 in the ΛCDM paradigm. We follow the hierarchical assembly history of the most massive halo in a ~3 Gpc 3 volume and find that this halo of ~8 × 10 12 M ☉ forming at z ~ 6.5 after several major mergers is able to reproduce a number of observed properties of SDSS J1148+5251, the most distant quasar detected at z = 6.42 (Fan et al. 2003). Moreover, the SMBHs grow through gas accretion below the Eddington limit in a self-regulated manner owing to feedback. We find that the progenitors experience vigorous star formation (up to 10 4 M ☉ yr -1 ) preceding the major quasar phase such that the stellar mass of the quasar host reaches 10 12 M ☉ at z ~ 6.5, consistent with observations of significant metal enrichment in SDSS J1148+5251. The merger remnant thus obeys a similar M BH - M bulge scaling relation observed locally as a consequence of coeval growth and evolution of the SMBH and its host galaxy. Our results provide a viable formation mechanism for z ~ 6 quasars in the standard ΛCDM cosmology and demonstrate a common, merger-driven origin for the rarest quasars and the fundamental M BH - M bulge correlation in a hierarchical universe.

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Metadata

Authors
Li, Y., Hernquist, L., Robertson, B., Cox, T. J., Hopkins, P. F., Springel, V., Gao, L., Di Matteo, T., Zentner, A. R., Jenkins, A., & Yoshida, N.
Venue
The Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
American Astronomical Society
Published
2007-08-10
Volume
665
Issue
1
Pages
187-208
ISSN
  • 0004-637X (ISSN-L)
  • 1538-4357
DOI
10.1086/519297
OpenAlex
W1980924370
Cited by
301
References
216
FWCI
18.52
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
bronze

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CoChat. (2026). Citation check: Formation of z∼6 Quasars from Hierarchical Galaxy Mergers. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1086/519297
The paper
Li, Y., Hernquist, L., Robertson, B., Cox, T. J., Hopkins, P. F., Springel, V., Gao, L., Di Matteo, T., Zentner, A. R., Jenkins, A., & Yoshida, N. (2007). Formation of z∼6 Quasars from Hierarchical Galaxy Mergers. The Astrophysical Journal. https://doi.org/10.1086/519297

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Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).

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