The Hyperluminous, Dust-obscured Quasar W2246-0526: ALMA High-Resolution [C II] Imaging
Abstract
W2246-0526 at z = 4.6, the brightest known Hot dust-obscured galaxies (Hot DOGs) -- a rare class of hyper-luminous, dust-obscured quasars with accretion rates approaching or exceeding the Eddington limit--, and one of the most luminous objects known in the Universe, serves as an ideal laboratory to study AGN feedback. I will be presenting a study based on ALMA high spatial resolution observations (~500pc) of the [C II] emission line. The [C II] dynamics is a dispersion dominated system combined with large nuclear outflows. By removing the contribution of the outflows, we show that the nuclear velocity dispersion implies the presence of an SMBH with a mass of log (Mbh/M?) = 9.80±0.01, and find that the size of black hole sphere of influence is as large as 2.3 kpc. This constitutes the first time a dynamic SMBH mass is measured by resolving the SoI at z > 2, and highlights that ALMA high-resolution [C II] observations of obscured luminous quasars hold great promise to increase the number of dynamical SMBH mass measurements in very distant galaxies. On the other hand, our observations reveal spatially resolved, asymmetric nuclear outflows in [C II] with relatively low velocities (Vout~ 500 km/s), suggesting interaction with a very dense ISM and W2246-0526 is likely injecting large amounts of energy into its host's ISM, heating it up and, powering galaxy-scale turbulence that may ultimately inhibit star-formation.
Fields of Study & Subjects
Galaxies: Formation
Evolution
Phenomena
Astrophysical Phenomena and Observations
Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- Zenodo (CERN European Organization for Nuclear Research)
- Publication date
- 27 February 2026
- Language
- EN