The miniJPAS Survey: Detection of the double-core Lyα morphology for two high-redshift QSOs

¹ CAS Key Laboratory for Research in Galaxies and Cosmology, Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, CAS, Shanghai 200030, PR China
e-mail: 7rehanrenzin@gmail.com; zhengzy@shao.ac.cn
² Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Av. Bento Gonçalves, 9500, Porto Alegre, RS, Brazil
³ Department of Astronomy, Tsinghua University, Beijing 100084, PR China
⁴ Donostia International Physics Center, Paseo Manuel de Lardizabal 4, 20018 Donostia-San Sebastian, Spain
⁵ Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC), PO Box 3004 18080 Granada, Spain
⁶ Observatório Nacional/MCTI, Rua General José Cristino, 77, São Cristóvão, 20921-400 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
⁷ Departamento de Física Matemática, Instituto de Física, Universidade de São Paulo, Rua do Matão, 1371, 05508-090 São Paulo, Brazil
⁸ Ethiopian Space Science and Technology Institute (ESSTI), Entoto Observatory and Research Centre (EORC), Astronomy and Astrophysics Research and Development Department, Addis Ababa, Ethiopia
⁹ College of Astronomy and Space Sciences, University of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100049, PR China
¹⁰ Sydney Institute for Astronomy, School of Physics A28, The University of Sydney, Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia
¹¹ Instituto de Física de Cantabria, CSIC-Universidad de Cantabria, 39005 Santander, Spain
¹² Department of Theoretical Physics, University of the Basque Country UPV-EHU, 48040 Bilbao, Spain
¹³ Donostia International Physics Center (DIPC), 20018 Donostia, The Basque Country and IKERBASQUE, Basque Foundation for Science, Alameda Urquijo, 36-5, 48008 Bilbao, Spain
¹⁴ Ikerbasque, Basque Foundation for Science, 48013 Bilbao, Spain
¹⁵ Instituto de Física, Universidade Federal da Bahia, 40210-340 Salvador, BA, Brazil
¹⁶ Centro de Estudios de Física del Cosmos de Aragón (CEFCA), Plaza San Juan, 1, 44001 Teruel, Spain
¹⁷ Department of Astronomy, University of Michigan, 311 West Hall, 1085 South University Ave., Ann Arbor, USA
¹⁸ University of Alabama, Department of Physics and Astronomy, Gallalee Hall, Tuscaloosa, AL 35401, USA
¹⁹ Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Astronomia, Geofísica e Ciências Atmosféricas, Depto. de Astronomia, Rua do Matão, 1226, 05508-090 São Paulo, Brazil
²⁰ Instruments, 4121 Pembury Place, La Canada Flintridge, CA 91011, USA

Received: 7 August 2022
Accepted: 18 October 2022

Abstract

Context. The Lyα emission is an important tracer of neutral gas in a circum-galactic medium (CGM) around high-z quasi-stellar objects (QSOs). The origin of Lyα emission around QSOs is still under debate, bringing on significant implications for galaxy formation and evolution.

Aims. In this paper, we study Lyα nebulae around two high redshift QSOs, SDSS J141935.58+525710.7 at z = 3.218 (hereafter QSO1) and SDSS J141813.40+525240.4 at z = 3.287 (hereafter QSO2), from the miniJPAS survey within the All-wavelength Extended Groth Strip International Survey (AEGIS) field.

Methods. Using the contiguous narrow-band (NB) images from the miniJPAS survey and Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) spectra, we analyzed their morphology, nature, and origin.

Results. We report the serendipitous detection of double-core Lyα morphology around two QSOs, which is rarely seen among other QSOs. The separations of the two Lyα cores are 11.07 ± 2.26 kpcs (1.47 ± 0.3″) and 9.73 ± 1.55 kpcs (1.31 ± 0.21″), with Lyα line luminosities of ∼3.35  ×  10⁴⁴ erg s⁻¹ and ∼6.99  ×  10⁴⁴ erg s ⁻¹ for QSO1 and QSO2, respectively. The miniJPAS NB images show evidence of extended Lyα and CIV morphology for both QSOs and extended HeII morphology for QSO1.

Conclusions. These two QSOs may be potential candidates for the new enormous Lyman alpha nebula (ELAN) found from the miniJPAS survey due to their extended morphology in the shallow depth and relatively high Lyα luminosities. We suggest that galactic outflows are the major powering mechanism for the double-core Lyα morphology. Considering the relatively shallow exposures of miniJPAS, the objects found here could merely form the cusp of a promising number of such objects that will be uncovered in the upcoming full Javalambre-Physics of the Accelerated Universe Astrophysical Survey (J-PAS) survey and deep integral field units (IFU) observations with 8–10 m telescopes will be essential for constraining the underlying physical mechanism that is responsible for the double-cored morphology.