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Description
The uncharted territory of the high-redshift (z>~3) universe holds the key to understanding the evolution of quasars. In an attempt to identify the most extreme members of the quasar population, that is, blazars, we have carried out a multiwavelength study of a large sample of radio-loud quasars beyond z=3. Our sample consists of nine {gamma}-ray-detected blazars and 133 candidate blazars selected based on the flatness of their soft X-ray spectra (0.3-10keV photon index <~1.75), including 15 with Nuclear Spectroscopic Telescope Array (NuSTAR) observations. The application of the likelihood profile stacking technique reveals that the high-redshift blazars are faint {gamma}-ray emitters with steep spectra. The high-redshift blazars host massive black holes (<logM_BH,M{odot}_>>9) and luminous accretion disks (<L_disk_>>10^46^erg/s). Their broadband spectral energy distributions are found to be dominated by high-energy radiation, indicating their jets are among the most luminous ones. Focusing on the sources exhibiting resolved X-ray jets (as observed with the Chandra satellite), we find the bulk Lorentz factor to be larger with respect to other z>3 blazars, indicating faster moving jets. We conclude that the presented list of high-redshift blazars may act as a reservoir for follow-up observations, such as with NuSTAR, to understand the evolution of relativistic jets at the dawn of the universe.
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