Observations with the James Webb Space Telescope detect powerful, galaxy-scale outflows in luminous early quasars at high redshift (z≈5–6). Reporting in Nature and in a related preprint, researchers describe outflows traced by [O III] emission and argue that such activity could help explain how some early massive galaxies stop forming stars only ~1–2 billion years after the Big Bang.
Across the sample, the detection rate of exceptionally fast outflows is reported as 6 detections out of 27 quasars. Outflow speeds reach about 8,400 km/s, and inferred kinetic energy outflow rates can be exceptionally large, up to several hundred percent of the quasars’ bolometric luminosities (with values reported up to ~260%). The studies also compare this frequency to lower-redshift samples, finding that extreme outflows are substantially more common in the z≈5–6 quasar sample than at z≈1.5–3.5 or below.
The authors note that the energies and speeds imply that outflows could impact the circumgalactic medium and possibly the intergalactic medium, consistent with quasar feedback affecting early galaxy evolution and rapid star-formation quenching.
