Overmassive Black holes live in compact galaxies in the early Universe

Abstract A significant population of quasars have been found to exist within the first Gyr of cosmic time¹⁻⁵. Most of them have high black hole (BH) masses (MBH ~ 10⁸⁻¹⁰ MΘ) with an elevated BH-to-stellar mass ratio compared to typical local galaxies, posing challenges to our understanding of the formation of supermassive BHs and their coevolution with host galaxies.⁶, ⁷ Here, based on size measurements of [CII] 158μm emission for a statistical sample of z ~ 6 quasars, we find that their host galaxies are systematically more compact (with half-light radius Re ~ 1.6 kpc) than typical star-forming galaxies at the same redshifts. Specifically, the sizes of the most compact quasar hosts, which also tend to contain less cold gas than their more extended counterparts, are comparable to that of massive quiescent galaxies at z ~ 4-5. These findings reveal an intimate connection between the formation of massive BHs and compactness of their host galaxies in the early universe. These compact quasar hosts are promising progenitors of the first population of quiescent galaxies.