GA-NIFS: Early-stage feedback in a heavily obscured AGN at $z=4.76$

Understand

Dust-obscured galaxies are thought to represent an early evolutionary phase of massive galaxies in which the active galactic nucleus (AGN) is still deeply buried in significant amounts of dusty material and its emission is strongly suppressed.

• The unprecedented sensitivity of the James Webb Space Telescope enables us for the first time to detect the rest-frame optical emission of heavily obscured AGN and unveil the properties of the hidden accreting super-massive black holes (BHs).
• In this work, we present the JWST/NIRSpec IFS data of ALESS073.1, a massive, dusty, star-forming galaxy at $z = 4.76$ hosting an AGN at its center.
• The detection of a very broad $H_\alpha$ emission associated with the Broad Line Region (BLR) confirms the presence of a BH ($\log(M_{BH}/M_\odot)>8.7$) accreting at less than 15\% of its Eddington limit and classifies the target as a Type 1 AGN.