2004/06/24 by D. Farrah, Duncan Farrah, R. S. Priddey +7
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Pulsars and Gravitational Waves Research #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/423669
published as Astrophys.J. 611 (2004) L13-L16 · ApJ Letters, accepted
arxiv created 2004/06/24 · openalex publication_date 2004/07/09 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/31
We present a deep XMM-Newton observation of the z = 6.30 QSO SDSS J1030+0524, the second most distant quasar currently known. The data contain sufficient counts for spectral analysis, demonstrating the ability of XMM-Newton to measure X-ray spectral shapes of z ~ 6 QSOs with integration times ≳100 ks. The X-ray spectrum is well fitted by a power law with index Γ = 2.12 ± 0.11, an optical-X-ray spectral slope of α ox = -1.80, and no absorption excess to the Galactic value, although our data are also consistent with a power-law index in the range 2.02 < Γ < 2.5 and excess absorption in the range 0 < N H (cm -2 ) < 8 × 10 22 . There is also a possible detection (~2 σ) of FeKα emission. The X-ray properties of this QSO are, overall, similar to those of lower redshift radio-quiet QSOs. This is consistent with the statement that the X-ray properties of radio-quiet QSOs show no evolution over 0 < z < 6.3. Combined with previous results, this QSO appears indistinguishable in any way from lower redshift QSOs, indicating that QSOs comparable to those seen locally existed less than 1 Gyr after the big bang.