Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2002-06-25
Astrophys.J. 580 (2002) 63-72
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
Submitted to ApJ, 7 figures included
Scientific paper
10.1086/343116
Recent discoveries by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) of four bright redshift z=6 quasars could constrain the mechanism by which the supermassive black holes powering these sources are assembled. Here we compute the probability that the fluxes of the quasars are strongly amplified by gravitational lensing, and therefore the likelihood that the black hole masses are overestimated when they are inferred assuming Eddington luminosities. The poorly-constrained shape of the intrinsic quasar luminosity function (LF) at redshift z=6 results in a large range of possible lensing probabilities. If the LF is either steep, or extends to faint magnitudes, the probability for amplification by a factor of ten ore more (and with only one image detectable by SDSS) can reach essentially 100 percent. We show that future observations, in particular, either of the current four quasars at the high angular resolution provided by the Hubble Space Telescope, or of an increased sample of about twenty redshift six quasars at the current angular resolution, should either discover several gravitational lenses, or else provide interesting new constraints on the shape of the z=6 quasar LF.
Comerford Julia M.
Haiman Zoltan
Schaye Joop
No associations
LandOfFree
Constraining the Redshift z=6 Quasar Luminosity Function Using Gravitational Lensing does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this scientific paper.
If you have personal experience with Constraining the Redshift z=6 Quasar Luminosity Function Using Gravitational Lensing, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Constraining the Redshift z=6 Quasar Luminosity Function Using Gravitational Lensing will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFWR-SCP-O-195556