DISCOVERY OF A FAINT QUASAR AT z similar to 6 AND IMPLICATIONS FOR COSMIC REIONIZATION

摘要

Recent studies suggest that faint active galactic nuclei may be responsible for the reionization of the universe. Confirmation of this scenario requires spectroscopic identification of faint quasars (M-1450 > -24 mag) at z greater than or similar to 6, but only a very small number of such quasars have been spectroscopically identified so far. Here, we report the discovery of a faint quasar IMS J220417.92+011144.8 at z similar to 6 in a 12.5 deg(2) region of the SA22 field of the Infrared Medium-deep Survey (IMS). The spectrum of the quasar shows a sharp break at similar to 8443 angstrom, with emission lines redshifted to z = 5.944 +/- 0.002 and rest-frame ultraviolet continuum magnitude M-1450 = -23.59 +/- 0.10 AB mag. The discovery of IMS J220417.92+011144.8 is consistent with the expected number of quasars at z similar to 6 estimated from quasar luminosity functions based on previous observations of spectroscopically identified low-luminosity quasars. This suggests that the number of M-1450 similar to 23 mag quasars at z similar to 6 may not be high enough to fully account for the reionization of the universe. In addition, our study demonstrates that faint quasars in the early universe can be identified effectively with a moderately wide and deep near-infrared survey such as the IMS.