{"_id":"22362","title":"ASPIRE: The environments and dark matter halos of luminous quasars in the epoch of reionization","publisher":"IOP Publishing","file":[{"date_created":"2026-07-20T13:19:42Z","relation":"main_file","file_id":"22377","access_level":"open_access","creator":"dernst","success":1,"file_size":6884305,"checksum":"dd561fc00841217c227687e42d499ff0","content_type":"application/pdf","date_updated":"2026-07-20T13:19:42Z","file_name":"2026_AstrophysicalJour_Wang.pdf"}],"date_published":"2026-07-20T00:00:00Z","oa_version":"Published Version","acknowledgement":"F.W. acknowledges support from NSF award AST-2513040. J.B.C. acknowledges funding from the JWST Arizona/Steward Postdoc in Early galaxies and Reionization (JASPER) Scholar contract at the University of Arizona. M.H. acknowledges support from the Swiss SNSF Starting Grant (grant no. 218032). S.E.I.B. is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) under Emmy Noether grant No. BO 5771/1-1. J.-T.S. is supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation)—project No. 518006966. A.L. acknowledges support from PRIN MUR 2022935STW. C.M. acknowledges support from Fondecyt Iniciacion grant 11240336 and the ANID BASAL project FB210003. R.A.M. acknowledges support from the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) through project grant 200020_207349. B.T. acknowledges support from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 950533) and from the Excellence Cluster ORIGINS, which is funded by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) under Germany’s Excellence Strategy—EXC 2094—390783311. M.V. gratefully acknowledges financial support from the Independent Research Fund Denmark via grant Nos. DFF 8021-00130 and 3103-00146 and from the Carlsberg Foundation (grant CF23-0417).\r\n\r\nThis work is based on observations made with the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope. The data were obtained from the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127 for JWST. These observations are associated with program #2078 and can be accessed via doi:10.17909/vt74-kd84. Support for program #2078 was provided by NASA through a grant from the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS 5-03127. We acknowledge the strong support provided by the program coordinator Weston Eck and instrument reviewers Norbert Pirzkal and Stephanie La Massa.","researchdata_availability":"no","oa":1,"user_id":"2DF688A6-F248-11E8-B48F-1D18A9856A87","citation":{"ama":"Wang F, Champagne JB, Huang J, et al. ASPIRE: The environments and dark matter halos of luminous quasars in the epoch of reionization. <i>Astrophysical Journal</i>. 2026;1006(1). doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae7bfa\">10.3847/1538-4357/ae7bfa</a>","ista":"Wang F, Champagne JB, Huang J, Yang J, Hennawi JF, Fan X, Zhang H, Costa T, Decarli R, Habouzit M, Sun F, Bañados E, Jin X, Kakiichi K, Meyer RA, Wu Y, Belladitta S, Blecha L, Bosman SEI, Cai Z, Connor T, Davies FB, Eilers AC, Haiman Z, Jun HD, Li M, Li Z, Liu W, Lupi A, Lyu J, Mazzucchelli C, Onoue M, Pizzati E, Pudoka M, Rojas-Ruiz S, Schindler JT, Shen Y, Tee WL, Trakhtenbrot B, Trebitsch M, Vestergaard M, Volonteri M, Walter F, Zhang H, Zou S. 2026. ASPIRE: The environments and dark matter halos of luminous quasars in the epoch of reionization. Astrophysical Journal. 1006(1), 39.","short":"F. Wang, J.B. Champagne, J. Huang, J. Yang, J.F. Hennawi, X. Fan, H. Zhang, T. Costa, R. Decarli, M. Habouzit, F. Sun, E. Bañados, X. Jin, K. Kakiichi, R.A. Meyer, Y. Wu, S. Belladitta, L. Blecha, S.E.I. Bosman, Z. Cai, T. Connor, F.B. Davies, A.C. Eilers, Z. Haiman, H.D. Jun, M. Li, Z. Li, W. Liu, A. Lupi, J. Lyu, C. Mazzucchelli, M. Onoue, E. Pizzati, M. Pudoka, S. Rojas-Ruiz, J.T. Schindler, Y. Shen, W.L. Tee, B. Trakhtenbrot, M. Trebitsch, M. Vestergaard, M. Volonteri, F. Walter, H. Zhang, S. Zou, Astrophysical Journal 1006 (2026).","apa":"Wang, F., Champagne, J. B., Huang, J., Yang, J., Hennawi, J. F., Fan, X., … Zou, S. (2026). ASPIRE: The environments and dark matter halos of luminous quasars in the epoch of reionization. <i>Astrophysical Journal</i>. IOP Publishing. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae7bfa\">https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae7bfa</a>","chicago":"Wang, Feige, Jaclyn B. Champagne, Jiamu Huang, Jinyi Yang, Joseph F. Hennawi, Xiaohui Fan, Haowen Zhang, et al. “ASPIRE: The Environments and Dark Matter Halos of Luminous Quasars in the Epoch of Reionization.” <i>Astrophysical Journal</i>. IOP Publishing, 2026. <a href=\"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae7bfa\">https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae7bfa</a>.","mla":"Wang, Feige, et al. “ASPIRE: The Environments and Dark Matter Halos of Luminous Quasars in the Epoch of Reionization.” <i>Astrophysical Journal</i>, vol. 1006, no. 1, 39, IOP Publishing, 2026, doi:<a href=\"https://doi.org/10.3847/1538-4357/ae7bfa\">10.3847/1538-4357/ae7bfa</a>.","ieee":"F. Wang <i>et al.</i>, “ASPIRE: The environments and dark matter halos of luminous quasars in the epoch of reionization,” <i>Astrophysical Journal</i>, vol. 1006, no. 1. IOP Publishing, 2026."},"scopus_import":"1","OA_place":"publisher","date_updated":"2026-07-20T13:31:18Z","supplementarymaterial":"no","department":[{"_id":"ZoHa"}],"quality_controlled":"1","OA_type":"gold","file_date_updated":"2026-07-20T13:19:42Z","arxiv":1,"date_created":"2026-07-19T22:01:46Z","DOAJ_listed":"1","issue":"1","PlanS_conform":"1","article_processing_charge":"Yes","publication":"Astrophysical Journal","external_id":{"arxiv":["2602.04979"]},"article_number":"39","abstract":[{"text":"We present a systematic study of the environments of 25 luminous quasars at z > 6.5 from the ASPIRE program.\r\nUsing JWST/NIRCam wide-field slitless spectroscopy data, we identified 487 galaxies at 5.3 ≲ z ≲ 7.0 exhibiting\r\n[O III] emission. Among these, 122 [O III] emitters lie within |Δvlos| < 1000 km s\r\n−1 of the quasars, corresponding\r\nto a ∼9.4-fold enhancement relative to the average galaxy density at other redshifts. Furthermore, we identified 16\r\n[C II]-emitting galaxies at the quasar redshifts from Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) mosaic observations. A cross-correlation function analysis between quasars and [O III]+[C II] emitters yields a\r\ncross-correlation length of r 8.68 h cMpc 0\r\nQG\r\n0.55 = +0.51 1\r\nand an autocorrelation of r 15.76 h cMpc 0\r\nQQ\r\n2.70 = +2.48 1 ,\r\nindicating that z ∼ 7 quasars reside in dark matter halos with\r\nMhalo 1012.27 0.26 M 0.21\r\n= +\r\nand have a quasar lifetime of\r\ntQ 10 yr 7.05 1.01\r\n0.95\r\n= +\r\n. Notably, the number of [O III]-emitting galaxies at quasar redshifts varies significantly from\r\nfield to field, ranging from 0 to 20, highlighting a diverse quasar environment. Remarkably, seven quasars trace\r\nsignificant galaxy overdensities (i.e., protoclusters), with δgal > 5 within a volume of V ∼ 500 cMpc3\r\n. We also\r\nfind that |Δvlos| increases rapidly toward smaller galaxy–quasar separations in protocluster fields, consistent with\r\ngalaxy kinematics around extremely massive halos in cosmological simulations. By combining JWST and ALMA\r\ndata, we reveal the complex and diverse environments of these early quasars, providing robust evidence that the\r\nearliest luminous quasars are effective tracers of galaxy overdensities, albeit with substantial field-to-field\r\nvariation.","lang":"eng"}],"year":"2026","ddc":["520"],"language":[{"iso":"eng"}],"license":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/","status":"public","publication_identifier":{"issn":["0004637X"],"eissn":["15384357"]},"tmp":{"legal_code_url":"https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/legalcode","name":"Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License (CC-BY 4.0)","short":"CC BY (4.0)","image":"/images/cc_by.png"},"volume":1006,"author":[{"full_name":"Wang, Feige","last_name":"Wang","first_name":"Feige"},{"first_name":"Jaclyn B.","full_name":"Champagne, Jaclyn B.","last_name":"Champagne"},{"first_name":"Jiamu","last_name":"Huang","full_name":"Huang, Jiamu"},{"last_name":"Yang","full_name":"Yang, Jinyi","first_name":"Jinyi"},{"full_name":"Hennawi, Joseph F.","last_name":"Hennawi","first_name":"Joseph F."},{"first_name":"Xiaohui","full_name":"Fan, Xiaohui","last_name":"Fan"},{"full_name":"Zhang, Haowen","last_name":"Zhang","first_name":"Haowen"},{"first_name":"Tiago","last_name":"Costa","full_name":"Costa, Tiago"},{"last_name":"Decarli","full_name":"Decarli, Roberto","first_name":"Roberto"},{"first_name":"Melanie","full_name":"Habouzit, Melanie","last_name":"Habouzit"},{"first_name":"Fengwu","last_name":"Sun","full_name":"Sun, Fengwu"},{"full_name":"Bañados, Eduardo","last_name":"Bañados","first_name":"Eduardo"},{"full_name":"Jin, Xiangyu","last_name":"Jin","first_name":"Xiangyu"},{"full_name":"Kakiichi, Koki","last_name":"Kakiichi","first_name":"Koki"},{"first_name":"Romain A.","full_name":"Meyer, Romain A.","last_name":"Meyer"},{"first_name":"Yunjing","full_name":"Wu, Yunjing","last_name":"Wu"},{"first_name":"Silvia","last_name":"Belladitta","full_name":"Belladitta, Silvia"},{"first_name":"Laura","full_name":"Blecha, Laura","last_name":"Blecha"},{"first_name":"Sarah E.I.","last_name":"Bosman","full_name":"Bosman, Sarah E.I."},{"first_name":"Zheng","last_name":"Cai","full_name":"Cai, Zheng"},{"first_name":"Thomas","last_name":"Connor","full_name":"Connor, Thomas"},{"first_name":"Frederick B.","full_name":"Davies, Frederick B.","last_name":"Davies"},{"last_name":"Eilers","full_name":"Eilers, Anna Christina","first_name":"Anna Christina"},{"last_name":"Haiman","full_name":"Haiman, Zoltán","first_name":"Zoltán","orcid":"0000-0003-3633-5403","id":"7c006e8c-cc0d-11ee-8322-cb904ef76f36"},{"first_name":"Hyunsung D.","last_name":"Jun","full_name":"Jun, Hyunsung D."},{"last_name":"Li","full_name":"Li, Mingyu","first_name":"Mingyu"},{"first_name":"Zihao","last_name":"Li","full_name":"Li, Zihao"},{"first_name":"Weizhe","last_name":"Liu","full_name":"Liu, Weizhe"},{"last_name":"Lupi","full_name":"Lupi, Alessandro","first_name":"Alessandro"},{"last_name":"Lyu","full_name":"Lyu, Jianwei","first_name":"Jianwei"},{"first_name":"Chiara","last_name":"Mazzucchelli","full_name":"Mazzucchelli, Chiara"},{"full_name":"Onoue, Masafusa","last_name":"Onoue","first_name":"Masafusa"},{"first_name":"Elia","last_name":"Pizzati","full_name":"Pizzati, Elia"},{"first_name":"Maria","last_name":"Pudoka","full_name":"Pudoka, Maria"},{"full_name":"Rojas-Ruiz, Sofía","last_name":"Rojas-Ruiz","first_name":"Sofía"},{"full_name":"Schindler, Jan Torge","last_name":"Schindler","first_name":"Jan Torge"},{"last_name":"Shen","full_name":"Shen, Yue","first_name":"Yue"},{"first_name":"Wei Leong","full_name":"Tee, Wei Leong","last_name":"Tee"},{"first_name":"Benny","last_name":"Trakhtenbrot","full_name":"Trakhtenbrot, Benny"},{"last_name":"Trebitsch","full_name":"Trebitsch, Maxime","first_name":"Maxime"},{"first_name":"Marianne","last_name":"Vestergaard","full_name":"Vestergaard, Marianne"},{"last_name":"Volonteri","full_name":"Volonteri, Marta","first_name":"Marta"},{"first_name":"Fabian","full_name":"Walter, Fabian","last_name":"Walter"},{"last_name":"Zhang","full_name":"Zhang, Huanian","first_name":"Huanian"},{"last_name":"Zou","full_name":"Zou, Siwei","first_name":"Siwei"}],"intvolume":"      1006","day":"20","doi":"10.3847/1538-4357/ae7bfa","month":"07","das_tickbox":"1","dataavailabilitystatement":"This paper makes use of the following ALMA data: ADS/JAO.ALMA#2022.1.01077.L. ALMA is a partnership of ESO (representing its member states), NSF (USA) and NINS (Japan), together with NRC (Canada), MOST and ASIAA (Taiwan), and KASI (Republic of Korea), in cooperation with the Republic of Chile. The Joint ALMA Observatory is operated by ESO, AUI/NRAO and NAOJ. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc.\r\n\r\nFacility: JWST - James Webb Space Telescope (NIRCam).\r\n\r\nSoftware: astropy (Astropy Collaboration et al. 2018), Matplotlib (J. D. Hunter 2007), Numpy (C. R. Harris et al. 2020), Photutils (L. Bradley et al. 2022), Scipy (P. Virtanen et al. 2020), Source Extractor (E. Bertin & S. Arnouts 1996).","article_type":"original","has_accepted_license":"1","publication_status":"published","type":"journal_article"}