Mapping the primordial environment of QSOs at z~6 with LBT

In the current model of structure formation, high redshift QSOs are supposed to be hosted in the most massive dark matter halos and they should be therefore tracer of overdensities of star-forming galaxies, but the observational evidence is still not clear.

We studied the field around four distant QSOs using wide area, deep images in the r-, i- and z-bands, obtained with the Large Binocular Camera (LBC) on the Large Binocular Telescope (LBT).
For the J1030 field we obtained also Y- and J-band imaging with the near infrared camera (WIRCam) at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT)
The investigated QSOs are:

QSO RA DEC z MBH zSDSS
SDSS ID J2000 J2000   [109Mo] [AB mag]
J1030+0524 10:30:27.1 +05:24:55 6.28
3.2
20.0
J1048+4637 10:48:45.5 +46:37:18 6.20
3.9
19.9
J1148+525111:48:16.1+52:51:506.414.920.1
J1411+1217 14:11:11.3 +12:17:37 5.95
1.2
19.6

Results are presented in Morselli et al. (2014, A&A 568, A1).


The Data:

 This web page provides, for each of the four fields, a tri-color image of the full FoV, the FITS image of the r, i, z mosaics, the z-band selected photometric catalog with associated r- and i-band magnitudes, and cutouts of the i-dropouts selected as candidate high-z galaxies in the field. Each FITS image is about 200 MB in size, and the catalogs are 4-5 MB. For the J1030 field we also provide the FITS image of the Y, J mosaic, along with the corresponding near-infrared detected catalogs. This is the README file providing additional information about the photometric catalogs.


The Team:
Roberto Gilli Research Astronomer INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna
Marco Mignoli Research Astronomer INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna
Barbara Balmaverde
 Post-doc INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna
Nico Cappelluti
Post-doc
Yale University, USA
Eleonora Sani Post-doc European Southern Observatory (ESO), Chile
Andrea Comastri Full Astronomer/Director INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna
Cristian Vignali Faculty Researcher Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia - Università di Bologna
Eros Vanzella Research Astronomer INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Bologna
Marcella Brusa Faculty Researcher Dipartimento di Fisica e Astronomia - Università di Bologna