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A thirty-four billion solar mass black hole in SMSS J2157-3602, the most luminous known quasar

Onken, Christopher A. et al., 2020, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 496, 2309 | View on ADS (2020MNRAS.496.2309O)

Abstract

From near-infrared spectroscopic measurements of the Mg II emission line doublet, we estimate the black hole (BH) mass of the quasar, SMSS J215728.21-360215.1, as being (3.4 ± 0.6) × 1010 M and refine the redshift of the quasar to be z = 4.692. SMSS J2157 is the most luminous known quasar, with a 3000 Å luminosity of (4.7 ± 0.5) × 1047 erg s-1 and an estimated bolometric luminosity of 1.6 × 1048 erg s-1, yet its Eddington ratio is only ~0.4. Thus, the high luminosity of this quasar is a consequence of its extremely large BH - one of the most massive BHs at z > 4.

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