The discovery of a large population of luminous quasars at redshift z=6 afford us the opportunity to study the formation and evolution of the first massive galaxies, having formed just 750 million years after the Big Bang. In particular, knowledge of properties of the central black hole and ongoing star formation can help to constrain the possible coeval evolution of supermassive black hole growth, and starbursts in these early Universe objects. Observations of the molecular gas in galaxies serves as a powerful diagnostic as it traces the gas that serves not only as a stellar nursery, but also as fuel for the accreting supermassive black hole(s) that power the quasar. In this talk, I will discuss the nature of molecular gas emission from z=6 quasars, and how we can use this radiation to better understand the first galaxies. We have modeled the pertinent processes by combining detailed 3D radiative transfer calculations with merger-driven models of z=6 quasar formation that arise naturally in a Lambda-cold dark matter structure formation paradigm. I will assess the viability of our models for high redshift quasar formation by comparing the simulations to observations of the most distant known quasar, J1148+5251 at a redshift of z=6.42. I will further utilize these models to facilitate interpretation of observations which suggest that the central black hole in the first galaxies may have grown in part prior to their stellar bulges, in contrast to standard models of galaxy formation.

Further details can be found at: http://twinkle.as.arizona.edu/~dnarayanan/research