The multiple merger assembly of a hyperluminous obscured quasar at redshift 4.6

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

<P><B>Mergers drive a powerful dusty quasar</B></P><P>Massive galaxies in the early Universe host supermassive black holes at their centers. When material falls toward the black hole, it releases energy and is observed as a quasar. Astronomers found a population of powerful distant quasars that are obscured by dust, but it has been unclear how they are formed. Díaz-Santos <I>et al.</I> observed the dust-obscured quasar WISE J224607.56-052634.9 at submillimeter wavelengths, finding three small companion galaxies connected to the quasar by bridges of gas and dust. They inferred that galaxy mergers can provide both the raw material to power a quasar and large quantities of dust to obscure it.</P><P><I>Science</I>, this issue p. 1034</P><P>Galaxy mergers and gas accretion from the cosmic web drove the growth of galaxies and their central black holes at early epochs. We report spectroscopic imaging of a multiple merger event in the most luminous known galaxy, WISE J224607.56−052634.9 (W2246−0526), a dust-obscured quasar at redshift 4.6, 1.3 billion years after the Big Bang. Far-infrared dust continuum observations show three galaxy companions around W2246−0526 with disturbed morphologies, connected by streams of dust likely produced by the dynamical interaction. The detection of tidal dusty bridges shows that W2246−0526 is accreting its neighbors, suggesting that merger activity may be a dominant mechanism through which the most luminous galaxies simultaneously obscure and feed their central supermassive black holes.</P>