Journal article
XQR-30: The ultimate XSHOOTER quasar sample at the reionization epoch
V D'odorico, E Bañados, GD Becker, M Bischetti, SEI Bosman, G Cupani, R Davies, EP Farina, A Ferrara, C Feruglio, C Mazzucchelli, E Ryan-Weber, JT Schindler, A Sodini, BP Venemans, F Walter, H Chen, S Lai, Y Zhu, F Bian Show all
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | Published : 2023
Abstract
The final phase of the reionization process can be probed by rest-frame UV absorption spectra of quasars at z ≳ 6, shedding light on the properties of the diffuse intergalactic medium within the first Gyr of the Universe. The ESO Large Programme 'XQR-30: the ultimate XSHOOTER legacy survey of quasars at z ≃ 5.8-6.6' dedicated ∼250 h of observations at the VLT to create a homogeneous and high-quality sample of spectra of 30 luminous quasars at z ∼6, covering the rest wavelength range from the Lyman limit to beyond the Mg ii emission. Twelve quasar spectra of similar quality from the XSHOOTER archive were added to form the enlarged XQR-30 sample, corresponding to a total of ∼350 h of on-source..
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Grants
Awarded by Universität Heidelberg
Funding Acknowledgements
We are grateful to the referee, Prof. Michael Strauss, for his comments and suggestions which have allowed us to correct some mistakes and improve the clarity of the paper. SEIB, RAM, and FW acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 740246 Cosmic Gas'). HC is supported by the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC), funding reference #DIS-2022-568580. Parts of this research were supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project number CE170100013. EPF is supported by the international Gemini Observatory, a program of NSF's NOIRLab, which is managed by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy (AURA) under a cooperative agreement with the National Science Foundation, on behalf of the Gemini partnership of Argentina, Brazil, Canada, Chile, the Republic of Korea, and the United States of America. AF acknowledges support from the ERC Advanced Grant INTERSTELLAR H2020/740120. Support by ERC Advanced Grant 320596 The Emergence of Structure During the Epoch of reionization' is gratefully acknowledged by MGH. SRR acknowledges financial support from the International Max Planck Research School for Astronomy and Cosmic Physics at the University of Heidelberg (IMPRS-HD). JTS acknowledges funding from the ERC Advanced Grant program under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant agreement No. 885301). RT acknowledges financial support from the University of Trieste. RT acknowledges support from PRIN MIUR project Black Hole winds and the Baryon Life Cycle of Galaxies: the stone-guest at the galaxy evolution supper', contract #2017PH3WAT. This research was supported in part by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. NSF PHY-1748958. For the purpose of open access, the authors have applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission. This paper is based on the following ESO observing programmes: XSHOOTER 60.A-9024, 084.A-0360, 084.A-0390, 084.A-0550, 085.A-0299, 086.A-0162, 086.A-0574, 087.A-0607, 088.A-0897, 091.C-0934, 294.A-5031, 096.A-0095, 096.A-0418, 097.B-1070, 098.B-0537, 0100.A-0625, 0101.B-0272, 0102.A-0154, 0102.A-0478, 1103.A-0817; HAWKI (H band data) 105.20GY.005.