HYPERION. Shedding light on the first luminous quasars: A correlation between UV disc winds and X-ray continuum

¹ INAF – Osservatorio astronomico di Roma, Via Frascati 33, I-00040 Monte Porzio Catone, Italy
² INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Via G. Tiepolo 11, I-34143 Trieste, Italy
³ Dipartimento di Fisica, Sezione di Astronomia, Università di Trieste, Via Tiepolo 11, I-34143 Trieste, Italy
⁴ Centre for Extragalactic Astronomy, Department of Physics, Durham University, South Road, Durham DH1 3LE, UK
⁵ Centro de Astrobiología (CAB), CSIC-INTA, Camino Bajo del Castillo s/n, ESAC campus, 28692 Villanueva de la Cañada, Spain
⁶ Dipartimento di Matematica e Fisica, Università Roma Tre, Via della Vasca Navale 84, 00146 Roma, Italy
⁷ INAF – Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale e Fisica Cosmica Milano, Via A. Corti 12, 20133 Milano, Italy
⁸ Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia ‘Augusto Righi’, Universitá degli Studi di Bologna, Via P. Gobetti, 93/2, 40129 Bologna, Italy
⁹ INAF – Osservatorio di Astrofisica e Scienza dello Spazio di Bologna, Via Piero Gobetti, 93/3, I-40129 Bologna, Italy
¹⁰ Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, I-56126 Pisa, Italy
¹¹ NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, MD 20771, USA
¹² IFPU – Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe, Via Beirut 2, I-34151 Trieste, Italy
¹³ INFN – National Institute for Nuclear Physics, Via Valerio 2, I-34127 Trieste, Italy
¹⁴ Center for Astrophysics – Harvard & Smithsonian, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
¹⁵ Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA
¹⁶ INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova, Vicolo dell’Osservatorio 5, I-35122 Padova, Italy
¹⁷ European Space Agency, ESTEC, Keplerlaan 1, 2201 AZ, Noordwijk, The Netherlands
¹⁸ DiSAT, Università degli Studi dell’Insubria, Via Valleggio 11, I-22100 Como, Italy
¹⁹ INFN – Sezione di Milano-Bicocca, Piazza della Scienza 3, I-20126 Milano, Italy
²⁰ INAF – Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Via E. Bianchi 46, I-23807 Merate, Italy
²¹ INAF – Istituto di Astrofisica e Planetologia Spaziali, Via del Fosso del Caveliere 100, I-00133 Roma, Italy
²² Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, 19 J. J. Thomson Ave., Cambridge CB3 0HE, UK
²³ Kavli Institute for Cosmology, University of Cambridge, Madingley Road, Cambridge CB3 0HA, UK
²⁴ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London, Gower Street London WC1E 6BT, UK
²⁵ Univ. Grenoble Alpes, CNRS, IPAG, F-38000 Grenoble, France
²⁶ ASI – Agenzia Spaziale Italiana, Via del Politecnico snc, I-00133 Roma, Italy
²⁷ Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma La Sapienza, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, I-00185 Roma, Italy
²⁸ INFN – Sezione Roma1, Dipartimento di Fisica, Università di Roma La Sapienza, Piazzale Aldo Moro 2, I-00185 Roma, Italy
²⁹ Sapienza School for Advanced Studies, Viale Regina Elena 291, I-00161 Roma, Italy
³⁰ Physics Department, Tor Vergata University of Rome, Via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, 00133 Rome, Italy
³¹ INFN – Rome Tor Vergata, Via della Ricerca Scientifica 1, 00133 Rome, Italy
³² Department of Astronomy, University of Maryland, College Park MD 20742, USA
³³ University of Ljubljana, Department of Mathematics and Physics, Jadranska ulica 19, SI-1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia
³⁴ Main Astronomical Observatory, National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine, 27 Akademika Zabolotnoho St., Kyiv 03143, Ukraine
³⁵ Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, Sorbonne Université, CNRS, UMR 7095, 98 bis bd Arago, 75014 Paris, France

^⋆ Corresponding author; alessia.tortosa@inaf.it

Received: 19 February 2024
Accepted: 16 September 2024

Abstract

One of the main open questions in the field of luminous (L_bol > 10⁴⁷ erg s⁻¹) quasars (QSOs) at z ≳ 6 is the rapid formation (< 1 Gyr) of their supermassive black holes (SMBHs). For this work we analysed the relation between the X-ray properties and other properties describing the physics and growth of both the accretion disc and the SMBH in QSOs at the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). The sample consists of 21 z > 6 QSOs, which includes 16 sources from the rapidly grown QSOs from the HYPERION sample and five other luminous QSOs with available high-quality archival X-ray data. We discovered a strong and statistically significant (> 3σ) relation between the X-ray continuum photon index (Γ) and the C IV disc wind velocity (v_C․IV) in z > 6 luminous QSOs, whereby the higher the v_C․IV, the steeper the Γ. This relation suggests a link between the disc–corona configuration and the kinematics of disc winds. Furthermore, we find evidence at > 2 − 3σ level that Γ and v_C․IV are correlated to the growth rate history of the SMBH. Although additional data are needed to confirm it, this result may suggest that, in luminous z > 6 QSOs, the SMBH predominantly grows via fast accretion rather than via initial high seed BH mass.