Molecular gas in high redshift QSOs

Abstract

We review cm and mm observations of thermal molecular line emission from high redshift QSOs. These observations reveal the massive gas reservoirs (10^{10} to 10^{11} M_sun) required to fuel star formation at high rates. We discuss evidence for active star formation in QSO host galaxies, and we show that these high redshift, FIR-luminous QSOs follow the non-linear trend of increasing L_{FIR}/L'(CO) with increasing L_{FIR}. We conclude with a brief discussion of the recent CO detection of the most distant QSO at z=6.42, and its implications for cosmic reionization.

To appear in: Multiwavelength AGN Surveys, eds. Maiolino and Mujica (World Scientific), 8 pages