James Webb Space Telescope Feed Post

Reconstruction of Cosmic Black Hole Growth and Mass Distribution from Quasar Luminosity Functions at z>4

Paper abstract: The evolution of the quasar luminosity function (QLF) is fundamental to understanding the cosmic evolution of black holes (BHs) through their accretion phases. In the era of the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), Euclid, and Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, their unprecedented detection sensitivity and wide survey area can unveil the low-luminosity quasar and low-mass BH population, and provide new insights into quasar host galaxies. We present a theoretical model describing BH growth from initial seeding at z>20 to z~ 4,incorporating the duration of accretion episodes, the distribution of Eddington ratios, and the mass dependency of BH accretion rates. By constraining the model parameters with the observed QLFs at 4<= z<=6 across a wide UV luminosity range (-2910^8~M_\odot, leading to mass saturation at M_\bullet\gtrsim 10^{10}~M_\odot. We predict the BH mass function down to M_{\bullet}~ 10^6~M_\odot for both unobscured and obscured quasar populations at 4<= z <= 11, offering a benchmark for future observational tests. Our model accounts for the presence of both bright and faint quasars at z>4, including those discovered by JWST. Furthermore, our findings suggest two distinct pathways for the early assembly of the BH-galaxy mass correlation: the population with a BH-to-stellar mass ratio near the local value of M_\bullet/M_{*}~eq5\times10^{-3} maintains a proximity to the relation through its evolution via moderate growth, while the population that begins to grow above the local relation accretes mass rapidly and becomes as overmassive as M_\bullet/M_* ~ 0.01-0.1 by z~ 6.