[en] In this paper, we present the discovery of a z = 0.65 low-ionization broad absorption line (LoBAL) quasar in a post-starburst galaxy in data from the Dark Energy Survey (DES) and spectroscopy from the Australian Dark Energy Survey (OzDES). LoBAL quasars are a minority of all BALs, and rarer still is that this object also exhibits broad Fe ii (an FeLoBAL) and Balmer absorption. This is the first BAL quasar that has signatures of recently truncated star formation, which we estimate ended about 40 Myr ago. The characteristic signatures of an FeLoBAL require high column densities, which could be explained by the emergence of a young quasar from an early, dust-enshrouded phase, or by clouds compressed by a blast wave. Finally, the age of the starburst component is comparable to estimates of the lifetime of quasars, so if we assume the quasar activity is related to the truncation of the star formation, this object is better explained by the blast wave scenario.

[en] Flash lamp annealing of heteroepitaxial silicon carbide on silicon structures involves melting the silicon below the SiC layer but the faceted nature of the liquid-solid interface leads to unacceptable surface roughness. This letter describes a method of controlling melting by using a melt stop created at a controlled depth below the Si/SiC interface by implanting a high dose of carbon, which significantly increases the silicon melting temperature. Results confirm the effectiveness of this approach for increasing surface uniformity, making liquid phase processing compatible with standard device fabrication techniques

[en] The UK's 2008 Climate Change Act sets a legally binding target for reducing territorial greenhouse gas emissions by 80% by 2050, relative to 1990 levels. Four pathways to achieve this target have been developed by the Department of Energy and Climate Change, with all pathways requiring increased us of bioenergy. A significant amount of this could be indigenously sourced from crops, but will increased domestic production of energy crops conflict with other agricultural priorities? To address this question, a coupled analysis of the UK energy system and land use has been developed. The two systems are connected by the production of bioenergy, and are projected forwards in time under the energy pathways, accounting for various constraints on land use for agriculture and ecosystem services. The results show different combinations of crop yield and compositions for the pathways lead to the appropriation of between 7% and 61% of UK's agricultural land for bioenergy production. This could result in competition for land for food production and other land uses, as well as indirect land use change in other countries due to an increase in bioenergy imports. Consequently, the potential role of bioenergy in achieving UK emissions reduction targets may face significant deployment challenges. - Highlights: • The Carbon Plan could result in significant land use change for bioenergy by 2050. • Higher Nuclear; less efficiency pathway has the highest land use change impact. • Higher Renewables; more energy efficiency pathway has the lowest land use change impact. • Transport decarbonisation via biofuels has the highest land use change impacts. • At current deployment rate only Higher Renewables pathway projections is achievable.

[en] We present ALMA detections of the [C ii] 158 μm emission line and the underlying far-infrared (FIR) continuum of three quasars at 6.6 < z < 6.9 selected from the VIKING survey. The [C ii] line fluxes range between 1.6 and 3.4 Jy km s⁻¹ ([C ii] luminosities ∼(1.9–3.9) × 10⁹ L_⊙). We measure continuum flux densities of 0.56–3.29 mJy around 158 μm (rest frame), with implied FIR luminosities of (0.6–7.5) × 10¹² L_⊙ and dust masses M_d = (0.7–24) × 10⁸ M_⊙. In one quasar we derive a dust temperature of ${30}_{-<!--\; ???\; -->9}^{+12}$ K from the continuum slope, below the canonical value of 47 K. Assuming that the [C ii] and continuum emission are powered by star formation, we find star formation rates from 100 to 1600 M_⊙ yr⁻¹ based on local scaling relations. The L_{[C ii]}/L_FIR ratios in the quasar hosts span a wide range from (0.3–4.6) × 10⁻³, including one quasar with a ratio that is consistent with local star-forming galaxies. We find that the strength of the L_{[C ii]} and 158 μm continuum emission in z ≳ 6 quasar hosts correlates with the quasar’s bolometric luminosity. In one quasar, the [C ii] line is significantly redshifted by ∼1700 km s⁻¹ with respect to the Mg ii broad emission line. Comparing to values in the literature, we find that, on average, the Mg ii is blueshifted by 480 km s⁻¹ (with a standard deviation of 630 km s⁻¹) with respect to the host galaxy redshift, i.e., one of our quasars is an extreme outlier. Through modeling we can rule out a flat rotation curve for our brightest [C ii] emitter. Finally, we find that the ratio of black hole mass to host galaxy (dynamical) mass is higher by a factor of 3–4 (with significant scatter) than local relations.

[en] We present Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of the [C ii] fine-structure line and the underlying far-infrared (FIR) dust continuum emission in J1120+0641, the most distant quasar currently known ($z=7.1$). We also present observations targeting the CO(2–1), CO(7–6), and [C i] 369 μm lines in the same source obtained at the Very Large Array and Plateau de Bure Interferometer. We find a [C ii] line flux of $F_{[\mathrm{C}\mathrm{I}\mathrm{I}]}=1.11\pm <!--\; ??\; -->0.10$ Jy $\mathrm{k}\mathrm{m}{\mathrm{s}}^{-<!--\; ???\; -->1}$ and a continuum flux density of $S_{227\mathrm{G}\mathrm{H}\mathrm{z}}=0.53\pm <!--\; ??\; -->0.04$ mJy beam⁻¹, consistent with previous unresolved measurements. No other source is detected in continuum or [C ii] emission in the field covered by ALMA (∼ 25″). At the resolution of our ALMA observations (0.″23, or 1.2 kpc, a factor of ∼70 smaller beam area compared to previous measurements), we find that the majority of the emission is very compact: a high fraction (∼80%) of the total line and continuum flux is associated with a region 1–1.5 kpc in diameter. The remaining ∼20% of the emission is distributed over a larger area with radius ≲4 kpc. The [C ii] emission does not exhibit ordered motion on kiloparsec scales: applying the virial theorem yields an upper limit on the dynamical mass of the host galaxy of $(4.3\pm <!--\; ??\; -->0.9)\times <!--\; ??\; -->{10}^{10}$ $M_{\odot <!--\; ???\; -->}$, only ∼20 × higher than the central black hole (BH). The other targeted lines (CO(2–1), CO(7–6), and [C i]) are not detected, but the limits of the line ratios with respect to the [C ii] emission imply that the heating in the quasar host is dominated by star formation, and not by the accreting BH. The star formation rate (SFR) implied by the FIR continuum is 105–340 $M_{\odot <!--\; ???\; -->}{\mathrm{y}\mathrm{r}}^{-<!--\; ???\; -->1}$, with a resulting SFR surface density of ∼100–350 $M_{\odot <!--\; ???\; -->}{\mathrm{y}\mathrm{r}}^{-<!--\; ???\; -->1}$ kpc⁻², well below the value for Eddington-accretion-limited star formation.

[en] We present ALMA band 3 observations of the CO(6–5), CO(7–6), and [C i] 369 μm emission lines in three of the highest-redshift quasar host galaxies at $6.6<<!--\; <\; -->z<<!--\; <\; -->6.9$. These measurements constitute the highest-redshift CO detections to date. The target quasars have previously been detected in [C ii] 158 μm emission and the underlying FIR dust continuum. We detect (spatially unresolved, at a resolution of >2″, or ≳14 kpc) CO emission in all three quasar hosts. In two sources, we detect the continuum emission around 400 μm (rest-frame), and in one source we detect [C i] at low significance. We derive molecular gas reservoirs of (1–3) × 10¹⁰ $M_{\odot <!--\; ???\; -->}$ in the quasar hosts, i.e., approximately only 10 times the mass of their central supermassive black holes. The extrapolated [C ii]-to-CO(1–0) luminosity ratio is 2500–4200, consistent with measurements in galaxies at lower redshift. The detection of the [C i] line in one quasar host galaxy and the limit on the [C i] emission in the other two hosts enables a first characterization of the physical properties of the interstellar medium in z ∼ 7 quasar hosts. In the sources, the derived global CO/[C ii]/[C i] line ratios are consistent with expectations from photodissociation regions, but not X-ray-dominated regions. This suggest that quantities derived from the molecular gas and dust emission are related to ongoing star-formation activity in the quasar hosts, providing further evidence that the quasar hosts studied here harbor intense starbursts in addition to their active nucleus.

[en] We describe a technique for simultaneously classifying and estimating the redshift of quasars. It can separate quasars from stars in arbitrary redshift ranges, estimate full posterior distribution functions for the redshift, and naturally incorporate flux uncertainties, missing data, and multi-wavelength photometry. We build models of quasars in flux-redshift space by applying the extreme deconvolution technique to estimate the underlying density. By integrating this density over redshift, one can obtain quasar flux densities in different redshift ranges. This approach allows for efficient, consistent, and fast classification and photometric redshift estimation. This is achieved by combining the speed obtained by choosing simple analytical forms as the basis of our density model with the flexibility of non-parametric models through the use of many simple components with many parameters. We show that this technique is competitive with the best photometric quasar classification techniques—which are limited to fixed, broad redshift ranges and high signal-to-noise ratio data—and with the best photometric redshift techniques when applied to broadband optical data. We demonstrate that the inclusion of UV and NIR data significantly improves photometric quasar-star separation and essentially resolves all of the redshift degeneracies for quasars inherent to the ugriz filter system, even when included data have a low signal-to-noise ratio. For quasars spectroscopically confirmed by the SDSS 84% and 97% of the objects with Galaxy Evolution Explorer UV and UKIDSS NIR data have photometric redshifts within 0.1 and 0.3, respectively, of the spectroscopic redshift; this amounts to about a factor of three improvement over ugriz-only photometric redshifts. Our code to calculate quasar probabilities and redshift probability distributions is publicly available.

[en] We present the analysis of optical and near-infrared spectra of the only four z > 6.5 quasars known to date, discovered in the UKIDSS-LAS and VISTA-VIKING surveys. Our data set consists of new Very Large Telescope/X-Shooter and Magellan/FIRE observations. These are the best optical/NIR spectroscopic data that are likely to be obtained for the z > 6.5 sample using current 6-10 m facilities. We estimate the black hole (BH) mass, the Eddington ratio, and the Si IV/C IV, C III]/C IV, and Fe II/Mg II emission-line flux ratios. We perform spectral modeling using a procedure that allows us to derive a probability distribution for the continuum components and to obtain the quasar properties weighted upon the underlying distribution of continuum models. The z > 6.5 quasars show the same emission properties as their counterparts at lower redshifts. The z > 6.5 quasars host BHs with masses of ∼10⁹ M_☉ that are accreting close to the Eddington luminosity ((log(L_Bol/L_Edd)) = –0.4 ± 0.2), in agreement with what has been observed for a sample of 4.0 < z < 6.5 quasars. By comparing the Si IV/C IV and C III]/C IV flux ratios with the results obtained from luminosity-matched samples at z ∼ 6 and 2 ≤ z ≤ 4.5, we find no evidence of evolution of the line ratios with cosmic time. We compare the measured Fe II/Mg II flux ratios with those obtained for a sample of 4.0 < z < 6.4 sources. The two samples are analyzed using a consistent procedure. There is no evidence that the Fe II/Mg II flux ratio evolves between z = 7 and z = 4. Under the assumption that the Fe II/Mg II traces the Fe/Mg abundance ratio, this implies the presence of major episodes of chemical enrichment in the quasar hosts in the first ∼0.8 Gyr after the Big Bang.