Staring at the Shadows of Archaic Galaxies: Damped Lyα and Metal Absorbers Toward a Young z ∼ 6 Weak-line Quasar

Abstract

Abstract We characterize the Lyα halo and absorption systems toward PSO J083+11, a unique z = 6.3401 weak-line quasar, using Gemini Near-infrared Spectrograph, Magellan Folded-port Infrared Echellette, and Very Large Telescope Multi Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) data. Strong absorptions by hydrogen and several metal lines (e.g., C ii, Mg ii, and O i) are discovered in the spectrum, which indicates the presence of: (i) a proximate subdamped Lyα (sub-DLA) system at z = 6.314 and (ii) a Mg ii absorber at z = 2.2305. To describe the observed damping wing signal, we model the Lyα absorption with a combination of a sub-DLA with the neutral hydrogen column density of log N HI = 20.03 ± 0.30 cm − 2 and absorption from the intergalactic medium with a neutral fraction of around 10%. The sub-DLA toward PSO J083+11 has an abundance ratio of [C/O] = −0.04 ± 0.33 and metallicity of [O/H] = −2.19 ± 0.44, similar to those of low-redshift metal-poor DLAs. These measurements suggest that the sub-DLA might truncate PSO J083+11’s proximity zone size and complicate the quasar lifetime measurement. However, this quasar shows no sign of a Lyα halo in the MUSE data cube, where the estimated 1σ limit of surface brightness is 2.76 × 10 − 18 erg s − 1 cm − 2 arcsec − 2 at an aperture size of 1″, or equivalent to a Lyα luminosity of ≤43.46 erg s−1. This nondetection, while being only weak independent evidence on its own, is at least consistent with a young quasar scenario, as expected for a quasar with a short accretion timescale.