We report the discovery of a luminous quasar, J1007+2115 at z = 7.515 ("Pōniuā'ena"), from our wide-field reionization-era quasar survey. J1007+2115 is the second quasar now known at z > 7.5, deep into the reionization epoch. The quasar is powered by a (1.5 ± 0.2) × 10 9 M supermassive black hole (SMBH), based on its broad Mg II emission-line profile from Gemini and Keck near-IR spectroscopy. The SMBH in J1007+2115 is twice as massive as that in quasar J1342+0928 at z = 7.54, the current quasar redshift record holder. The existence of such a massive SMBH just 700 million years after the Big Bang significantly challenges models of the earliest SMBH growth. Model assumptions of Eddington-limited accretion and a radiative efficiency of 0.1 require a seed black hole of 10 4 M at z = 30. This requirement suggests either a massive black hole seed as a result of direct collapse or earlier periods of rapid black hole growth with hyper-Eddington accretion and/or a low radiative efficiency. We measure the damping wing signature imprinted by neutral hydrogen absorption in the intergalactic medium (IGM) on J1007+2115's Lyα line profile, and find that it is weaker than that of J1342+0928 and two other z 7 quasars. We estimate an IGM volume-averaged neutral fraction x HI = 0.39 +0.22 −0.13 . This range of values suggests a patchy reionization history toward different IGM sightlines. We detect the 158 µm [C II] emission line in J1007+2115 with ALMA; this line centroid yields a systemic redshift of z = 7.5149 ± 0.0004 and indicates a star formation rate of ∼ 210 M yr −1 in its host galaxy.

Distant quasars are unique tracers to study the formation of the earliest supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the history of cosmic reionization. Despite extensive efforts, only two quasars have been found at z ≥ 7.5, due to a combination of their low spatial density and the high contamination rate in quasar selection. We report the discovery of a luminous quasar at z = 7.642, J0313−1806, the most distant quasar yet known. This quasar has a bolometric luminosity of 3.6 × 1013 L ⊙. Deep spectroscopic observations reveal a SMBH with a mass of (1.6 ± 0.4) × 109 M ⊙ in this quasar. The existence of such a massive SMBH just ∼670 million years after the big bang challenges significantly theoretical models of SMBH growth. In addition, the quasar spectrum exhibits strong broad absorption line (BAL) features in C iv and Si iv, with a maximum velocity close to 20% of the speed of light. The relativistic BAL features, combined with a strongly blueshifted C iv emission line, indicate that there is a strong active galactic nucleus (AGN)-driven outflow in this system. Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array observations detect the dust continuum and [C ii] emission from the quasar host galaxy, yielding an accurate redshift of 7.6423 ± 0.0013 and suggesting that the quasar is hosted by an intensely star-forming galaxy, with a star formation rate of ∼200 M ⊙ yr−1 and a dust mass of ∼7 × 107 M ⊙. Follow-up observations of this reionization-era BAL quasar will provide a powerful probe of the effects of AGN feedback on the growth of the earliest massive galaxies.

This is the second paper in a series on a new luminous z ∼ 5 quasar survey using optical and near-infrared colors. Here we present a new determination of the bright end of the quasar luminosity function (QLF) at z ∼ 5. Combined our 45 new quasars with previously known quasars that satisfy our selections, we construct the largest uniform luminous z ∼ 5 quasar sample to date, with 99 quasars in the range 4.7 ≤ z < 5.4 and −29 < M 1450 ≤ −26.8, within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) footprint. We use a modified 1/V a method including flux limit correction to derive a binned QLF, and we model the parametric QLF using maximum likelihood estimation. With the faint-end slope of the QLF fixed as α = −2.03 from previous deeper samples, the best fit of our QLF gives a flatter bright end slope β = −3.58 ± 0.24 and a fainter break magnitude M * 1450 = −26.98 ± 0.23 than previous studies at similar redshift. Combined with previous work at lower and higher redshifts, our result is consistent with a luminosity evolution and density evolution (LEDE) model. Using the best fit QLF, the contribution of quasars to the ionizing background at z ∼ 5 is found to be 18% − 45% with a clumping factor C of 2 − 5. Our sample suggests an evolution of radio loud fraction with optical luminosity but no obvious evolution with redshift.

This is the third paper in a series aimed at finding reionization-era quasars with the combination of DESI Legacy imaging Surveys (DELS), the Pan-STARRS1 (PS1) Survey, and near-infrared imaging surveys, such as the UKIRT Hemisphere Survey (UHS), as well as the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) mid-infrared survey. In this paper, we describe the updated quasar candidate selection procedure, report the discovery of 16 quasars at 6.4 z6.9 from an area of ∼13,020 deg 2 , and present the quasar luminosity function (QLF) at z∼6.7. The measured QLF follows F µ-L L 1450 1450 2.35 () in the magnitude range −27.6<M 1450 <−25.5. We determine the quasar comoving spatial density at á ñ z =6.7 and M 1450 <−26.0 to be 0.39±0.11 Gpc −3 and find the exponential density evolution parameter to be k=−0.78±0.18 from z∼6 to z∼6.7, corresponding to a rapid decline by a factor of ∼6 per unit redshift toward earlier epochs. This indicates that the rapid decline of quasar spatial density at z>5 that was found by previous works continues to z>6, at a rate significantly faster than the average decline rate between z∼3 and 5. We measured quasar comoving emissivity at z∼6.7, which indicates that high-redshift quasars are highly unlikely to make a significant contribution to hydrogen reionization. The broad absorption line quasar fraction at z6.5 is measured to be 22%. In addition, we also report the discovery of six additional quasars at z∼6 in the Appendix.

Among more than 200 quasars known at z 6, only one object, J0100+2802 (z=6.327), was found hosting a > 10 10 M super-massive black hole (SMBH). In order to investigate the host galaxy properties of J0100+2802, we performed multi-band ALMA observations, aiming at mapping the dust continuum, [C ii] and CO(6-5) emission lines with sub-kiloparsec scale resolution, as well as detecting high-J CO lines in CO(11-10), CO(10-9), and CO(7-6). The galaxy size is measured to be R major = 3.6 ± 0.2 kpc from the high resolution continuum observations. No ordered motion on kilo-parsec scales was found in both [C ii] and CO(6-5) emissions. The velocity dispersion is measured to be 161±7 km s −1 , ∼3 times smaller than that estimated from the local M-σ relation. In addition, we found that the CO emission is more concentrate (a factor of 1.8±0.4) than the [C ii] emission. Together with CO(2-1) detected by VLA, we measured the CO Spectral Line Energy Distribution (SLED), which is best fit by a two-components model, including a cool component at ∼ 24 K with a density of n (H 2 ) =10 4.5 cm −3 , and a warm component at ∼ 224 K with a density of n (H 2 ) =10 3.6 cm −3 . We also fitted the dust continuum with a graybody model, which indicates that it has either a high dust emissivity β 2 or a hot dust temperature T dust 60 K, or a combination of both factors. The highly excited CO emission and hot dust temperature suggest that the powerful AGN in J0100+2802 could contribute to the gas and dust heating although future observations are needed to confirm this.