A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): A First Look at the Rest-frame Optical Spectra of $z &gt; 6.5$ Quasars Using JWST
Creators: name: Yang, Jinyi
name: Wang, Feige
name: Fan, Xiaohui
name: Hennawi, Joseph F.
name: Barth, Aaron J.
name: Bañados, Eduardo
name: Sun, Fengwu
name: Liu, Weizhe
name: Cai, Zheng
name: Jiang, Linhua
name: Li, Zihao
name: Onoue, Masafusa
name: Schindler, Jan-Torge
name: Shen, Yue
name: Wu, Yunjing
name: Bhowmick, Aklant K.
name: Bieri, Rebekka
name: Blecha, Laura
name: Bosman, Sarah
name: Champagne, Jaclyn B.
name: Colina, Luis
name: Connor, Thomas
name: Costa, Tiago
name: Davies, Frederick B.
name: Decarli, Roberto
name: De Rosa, Gisella
name: Drake, Alyssa B.
name: Egami, Eiichi
name: Eilers, Anna-Christina
name: Evans, Analis E.
name: Farina, Emanuele Paolo
name: Habouzit, Melanie
name: Haiman, Zoltan
name: Jin, Xiangyu
name: Jun, Hyunsung D.
name: Kakiichi, Koki
name: Khusanova, Yana
name: Kulkarni, Girish
name: Loiacono, Federica
name: Lupi, Alessandro
name: Mazzucchelli, Chiara
name: Pan, Zhiwei
name: Rojas-Ruiz, Sofía
name: Strauss, Michael A.
name: Tee, Wei Leong
name: Trakhtenbrot, Benny
name: Trebitsch, Maxime
name: Venemans, Bram
name: Vestergaard, Marianne
name: Volonteri, Marta
name: Walter, Fabian
name: Xie, Zhang-Liang
name: Yue, Minghao
name: Zhang, Haowen
name: Zhang, Huanian
name: Zou, Siwei
Publisher: name: arXiv
Year: 2023
Subjects: subject: Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA)
subject: Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics (astro-ph.CO)
subject: FOS: Physical sciences
subject: FOS: Physical sciences

description: Studies of rest-frame optical emission in quasars at $z&gt;6$ have historically been limited by the wavelengths accessible by ground-based telescopes. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) now offers the opportunity to probe this emission deep into the reionization epoch. We report the observations of eight quasars at $z&gt;6.5$ using the JWST/NIRCam Wide Field Slitless Spectroscopy, as a part of the ''A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE)" program. Our JWST spectra cover the quasars' emission between rest frame $\sim$ 4100 and 5100 Å. The profiles of these quasars' broad H$β$ emission lines span a FWHM from 3000 to 6000 $\rm{km~s^{-1}}$. The H$β$-based virial black hole (BH) masses, ranging from 0.6 to 2.1 billion solar masses, are generally consistent with their MgII-based BH masses. The new measurements based on the more reliable H$β$ tracer thus confirm the existence of billion solar-mass BHs in the reionization epoch. In the observed [OIII] $λλ$4960,5008 doublets of these luminous quasars, broad components are more common than narrow core components ($\le~1200~\rm{km~s^{-1}}$), and only one quasar shows stronger narrow components than broad. Two quasars exhibit significantly broad and blueshifted [OIII] emission, thought to trace galactic-scale outflows, with median velocities of $-610~\rm{km~s^{-1}}$ and $-1430~\rm{km~s^{-1}}$ relative to the [CII] $158\,μ$m line. All eight quasars show strong optical FeII emission, and follow the Eigenvector 1 relations defined by low-redshift quasars. The entire ASPIRE program will eventually cover 25 quasars and provide a statistical sample for the studies of the BHs and quasar spectral properties.
description: 13 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in ApJL