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ABSTRACT So far, roughly 40 quasars with redshifts greater than _z_ = 6 have been discovered1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8. Each quasar contains a black hole with a mass of about one billion solar masses

(109 )2,6,7,9,10,11,12,13. The existence of such black holes when the Universe was less than one billion years old presents substantial challenges to theories of the formation and growth of

black holes and the coevolution of black holes and galaxies14. Here we report the discovery of an ultraluminous quasar, SDSS J010013.02+280225.8, at redshift _z_ = 6.30. It has an optical

and near-infrared luminosity a few times greater than those of previously known _z_ > 6 quasars. On the basis of the deep absorption trough15 on the blue side of the Lyman-α emission line

in the spectrum, we estimate the proper size of the ionized proximity zone associated with the quasar to be about 26 million light years, larger than found with other _z_ > 6.1 quasars

with lower luminosities16. We estimate (on the basis of a near-infrared spectrum) that the black hole has a mass of ∼1.2 × 1010 , which is consistent with the 1.3 × 1010 derived by assuming

an Eddington-limited accretion rate. Access through your institution Buy or subscribe This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution ACCESS OPTIONS Access through

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Read our FAQs * Contact customer support SIMILAR CONTENT BEING VIEWED BY OTHERS THE ACCRETION OF A SOLAR MASS PER DAY BY A 17-BILLION SOLAR MASS BLACK HOLE Article 19 February 2024 A MATURE

QUASAR AT COSMIC DAWN REVEALED BY JWST REST-FRAME INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY Article 17 June 2024 A DYNAMICAL MEASURE OF THE BLACK HOLE MASS IN A QUASAR 11 BILLION YEARS AGO Article Open access

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(2009) Article  ADS  CAS  Google Scholar  Download references ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS X.-B.W. thanks the NSFC (grant nos 11033001 and 11373008), the Strategic Priority Research Program ‘The

Emergence of Cosmological Structures’ of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (grant no. XDB09000000), and the National Key Basic Research Program of China (grant no. 2014CB845700) for support.

X.F., R.W. and I.D.M. thank the US NSF (grant nos AST 08-06861 and AST 11-07682) for support. R.W. thanks the NSFC (grant no. 11443002) for support. We acknowledge the support of the staff

of the Lijiang 2.4-m telescope. Funding for the telescope was provided by the Chinese Academy of Sciences and the People’s Government of Yunnan Province. This research uses data obtained

through the Telescope Access Program (TAP), which has been funded by the Strategic Priority Research Program ‘The Emergence of Cosmological Structures’ (grant no. XDB09000000), National

Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the Special Fund for Astronomy from the Ministry of Finance of China. We thank D. Osip for help with Magellan/FIRE spectroscopy,

and Y.-L. Ai, L. C. Ho, Y. Shen and J.-G. Wang for suggestions about data analyses. We acknowledge the use of SDSS, 2MASS and WISE data, and of the MMT, LBT, Gemini and Magellan telescopes;

detailed acknowledgments of these facilities can be found in Supplementary Information. AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Department of Astronomy, School of Physics, Peking

University, Beijing, 100871, China Xue-Bing Wu, Feige Wang, Jinyi Yang & Qian Yang * Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing, 100871, China Xue-Bing

Wu, Feige Wang, Xiaohui Fan, Linhua Jiang, Ran Wang, Jinyi Yang & Qian Yang * Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721-0065, Arizona, USA Xiaohui Fan & Ian D.

McGreer * Yunnan Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650011, China Weimin Yi * University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China Weimin Yi * Key Laboratory

for the Structure and Evolution of Celestial Objects, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Kunming, 650011, China Weimin Yi * Shanghai Astronomical Observatory, Chinese Academy of Sciences,

Shanghai, 200030, China Wenwen Zuo * Mount Stromlo Observatory, Research School of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Australian National University, Weston Creek, Australian Capital Territory

2611, Australia, Fuyan Bian * Large Binocular Telescope Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, 85721, Arizona, USA David Thompson * Las Campanas Observatory, Carnegie Institution of

Washington, Colina el Pino, Casilla 601, La Serena, Chile, Yuri Beletsky Authors * Xue-Bing Wu View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Feige

Wang View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Xiaohui Fan View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar *

Weimin Yi View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Wenwen Zuo View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google

Scholar * Fuyan Bian View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Linhua Jiang View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed

 Google Scholar * Ian D. McGreer View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Ran Wang View author publications You can also search for this author

inPubMed Google Scholar * Jinyi Yang View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Qian Yang View author publications You can also search for this

author inPubMed Google Scholar * David Thompson View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar * Yuri Beletsky View author publications You can also

search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CONTRIBUTIONS X.-B.W., F.W. and X.F. planned the study, and wrote the draft version of the paper. All other co-authors contributed extensively

and equally to the observations, data analyses and writing of the manuscript. CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Xue-Bing Wu. ETHICS DECLARATIONS COMPETING INTERESTS The authors declare

no competing financial interests. EXTENDED DATA FIGURES AND TABLES EXTENDED DATA FIGURE 1 IMAGES OF J0100+2802 IN SDSS, 2MASS AND WISE BANDS. J0100+2802 is undetected in SDSS u,g,r bands

(top row) but is relatively bright in other bands (lower three rows). It is consistent with a point source in the bands with high signal-to-noise detections. The size is 1′ × 1′ for all

images. The green circle represents an angular size of 10″ in each image. EXTENDED DATA FIGURE 2 THE LBT K-BAND IMAGE OF J0100+2802. The size is 10″ × 10″. The horizontal and vertical axes

denote the offsets in right ascension (ΔRA) and in declination (ΔDec.). The image, with seeing of 0.4″, shows a morphology fully consistent with a point source. EXTENDED DATA FIGURE 3 THE

REST-FRAME SPECTRAL ENERGY DISTRIBUTIONS OF J0100+2802, J1148+5251 AND ULAS J1120+0641. The redshifts of these three quasars are 6.30, 6.42 and 7.085, respectively. The luminosity of

J0100+2802 in the ultraviolet/optical bands is about four times higher than that of J1148+5251, and seven times higher than that of ULAS J1120+0641. The photometric data are from literature

for J1148+5251 and J1120+0641. The error bars show the 1_σ_ standard deviation. EXTENDED DATA FIGURE 4 THE MAJOR ABSORPTION FEATURES IDENTIFIED FROM OPTICAL AND NEAR-INFRARED SPECTROSCOPY OF

J0100+2802. Most of them are from Mg ii, C iv and Fe ii. The labels from A to H correspond to the redshifts of absorption materials at 6.14, 6.11, 5.32, 5.11, 4.52, 4.22, 3.34 and 2.33,

respectively. Studies of intervening and associated absorption systems will be discussed elsewhere. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION This file contains additional

acknowledgments. (PDF 78 kb) POWERPOINT SLIDES POWERPOINT SLIDE FOR FIG. 1 POWERPOINT SLIDE FOR FIG. 2 POWERPOINT SLIDE FOR FIG. 3 POWERPOINT SLIDE FOR FIG. 4 RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints

and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Wu, XB., Wang, F., Fan, X. _et al._ An ultraluminous quasar with a twelve-billion-solar-mass black hole at redshift 6.30. _Nature_ 518,

512–515 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14241 Download citation * Received: 17 June 2014 * Accepted: 15 January 2015 * Published: 25 February 2015 * Issue Date: 26 February 2015 * DOI:

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