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Originally published in Science Express on 3 April 2003
Science 2 May 2003:
Vol. 300. no. 5620, pp. 773 - 775
DOI: 10.1126/science.1082600
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Reports

A Molecular Einstein Ring: Imaging a Starburst Disk Surrounding a Quasi-Stellar Object

C. L. Carilli,1* G. F. Lewis,2 S. G. Djorgovski,3 A. Mahabal,3 P. Cox,4 F. Bertoldi,5 A. Omont6

Images of the molecular CO 2-1 line emission and the radio continuum emission from the redshift 4.12 gravitationally lensed quasi-stellar object (QSO) PSS J2322+1944 reveal an Einstein ring with a diameter of 1.5''. These observations are modeled as a star-forming disk surrounding the QSO nucleus with a radius of 2 kiloparsecs. The implied massive star formation rate is 900 solar masses per year. At this rate, a substantial fraction of the stars in a large elliptical galaxy could form on a dynamical time scale of 108 years. The observation of active star formation in the host galaxy of a high-redshift QSO supports the hypothesis of coeval formation of supermassive black holes and stars in spheroidal galaxies.

1 National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Post Office Box O, Socorro, NM 87801, USA.
2 School of Physics, University of Sydney, New South Wales 2006, Australia.
3 Department of Astronomy, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125, USA.
4 Institut d'Astrophysique Spatial, Université de Paris XI, 91405 Orsay, France.
5 Max-Planck Institut für Radioastronomie, Auf dem Hügel 69, Bonn D-53121, Germany.
6 Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, CNRS, 98 bis boulevard Arago, F-75014 Paris, France.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: ccarilli{at}aoc.nrao.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)