Discovery of a Radio‐loud Superstrong Fe ii –emitting Quasar

Abstract

We report the discovery of a new radio-loud quasar, 2MASS J015328+2609, with superstrong Fe II emission. It was found during the course of the optical identification of quasar candidates selected by matching the NRAO/VLA Sky Survey and Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty cm catalog and the 2MASS catalog. Several unusual properties make this object particular interesting: (1) ultraluminous near- and far-infrared (L FIR ≈ 10 12.7 L ⊙ and L NIR ≈ 10 12.5 L ⊙ ) emission, (2) very strong optical Fe II emission (R 4570 ≈ 4.35), (3) apparently blueshifted optical Fe II multiplets (several hundred km s -1 ), (4) the strongest radio emission among radio-far-infrared selected narrow-line Seyfert 1 galaxies and extreme Fe 11 emitters, and (5) composite Balmer lines with both narrow and broad components (the latter blueshifted by about 1000 km s -1 ). We propose that it is a moderately obscured quasi-stellar object (QSO) in a transient stage between ultraluminous infrared galaxy (ULIRG) and QSO activity. Further study of this object may significantly improve our understanding of the Fe II formation mechanism and the connection between ULIRGs and QSOs.