Detection of stellar light from quasar host galaxies at redshifts above 6

Understand

The detection of starlight from the host galaxies of quasars during the reionization epoch ($z>6$) has been elusive, even with deep HST observations.

• The current highest redshift quasar host detected, at $z=4.5$, required the magnifying effect of a foreground lensing galaxy.
• Low-luminosity quasars from the Hyper Suprime-Cam Subaru Strategic Program (HSC-SSP) mitigate the challenge of detecting their underlying, previously-undetected host galaxies.
• Here we report rest-frame optical images and spectroscopy of two HSC-SSP quasars at $z>6$ with JWST.