@article{7260091654ab4ee48bf91e3097de0b11,
title = "Gemini near-infrared spectroscopy of high-redshift Fermi Blazars: Jetted Black Holes in the early universe were overly massive",
abstract = "Jetted active galactic nuclei (AGNs) are the principal extragalactic γ-ray sources. Fermi-detected high-redshift (z > 3) blazars are jetted AGNs thought to be powered by massive, rapidly spinning supermassive black holes (SMBHs) in the early universe (<2 Gyr). They provide a laboratory to study early black hole (BH) growth and super-Eddington accretion - possibly responsible for the more rapid formation of jetted BHs. However, previous virial BH masses of z > 3 blazars were based on C iv λ1549 in the observed optical, but C iv λ1549 is known to be biased by strong outflows. We present new Gemini/GNIRS near-infrared spectroscopy for a sample of nine z > 3 Fermi γ-ray blazars with available multiwavelength observations that maximally sample the spectral energy distributions (SEDs). We estimate virial BH masses based on the better calibrated broad H β and/or Mg ii λ2800. We compare the new virial BH masses against independent mass estimates from SED modelling. Our work represents the first step in campaigning for more robust virial BH masses and Eddington ratios for high-redshift Fermi blazars. Our new results confirm that high-redshift Fermi blazars indeed host overly massive SMBHs as suggested by previous work, which may pose a theoretical challenge for models of the rapid early growth of jetted SMBHs.",
keywords = "galaxies: active, quasars: supermassive black holes",
author = "Burke, \{Colin J\} and Xin Liu and Yue Shen",
note = "Based in part on observations obtained at the international Gemini Observatory (Program ID GN-2022A-Q-138; PI: X. Liu), a program of NSF{\textquoteright}s NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation on behalf of the Gemini Observatory partnership: the National Science Foundation (United States), National Research Council (Canada), Agencia Nacional de Investigaci{\'o}n y Desarrollo (Chile), Ministerio de Ciencia, Tecnolog{\'i}a e Innovaci{\'o}n (Argentina), Minist{\'e}rio da Ci{\^e}ncia, Tecnologia, Inova{\c c}{\~o}es e Comunica{\c c}{\~o}es (Brazil), and Korea Astronomy and Space Science Institute (Republic of Korea). This work was enabled by observations made from the Gemini North telescope, located within the Maunakea Science Reserve and adjacent to the summit of Maunakea. We are grateful for the privilege of observing the Universe from a place that is unique in both its astronomical quality and its cultural significance. CJB and XL acknowledge support from NASA grant 80NSSC22K0030. YS acknowledges support from NSF grant AST-2009947. This research made use of pypeit , a python package for semi-automated reduction of astronomical slit-based spectroscopy (Prochaska et al. , ). This research made use of astroquery (Ginsburg et al. ). This research made use of astropy , a community-developed core python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration , ). We thank Gabriele Ghisellini, Tullia Sbarrato, and Jianfeng Wu for useful discussion. We are grateful to Lea Marcotulli and the anonymous referee for comments which improved our manuscript.",
year = "2024",
month = jan,
day = "1",
doi = "10.1093/mnras/stad3592",
language = "English (US)",
volume = "527",
pages = "5356--5365",
journal = "Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society",
issn = "0035-8711",
publisher = "Oxford University Press",
number = "3",
}