Abstract

We present near-IR photometry and spectroscopy of 30 extremely luminous radio and mid-IR-selected galaxies. With bolometric luminosities exceeding ∼1013 L⊙ and redshifts ranging from z = 0.880 to 2.853, we use Very Large Telescope instruments X-shooter and Infrared Spectrometer and Array Camera to investigate this unique population of galaxies. Broad multicomponent emission lines are detected in 18 galaxies and we measure the near-IR lines Hβ, [OIII] λλ4959, 5007, and Hα in 6, 15, and 13 galaxies, respectively, with 10 Ly α and 5 CIV lines additionally detected in the UVB arm. We use the broad [O III] λ5007 emission lines as a proxy for the bolometric active galactic nucleus luminosity, and derive lower limits to supermassive black hole masses of 107.9-109.4M⊙ with expectations of corresponding host masses of 1010.4-1012.0M⊙. We measure λEdd > 1 for eight of these sources at a 2σ significance. Near-IR photometry and SED fitting are used to compare stellar masses directly. We detect both Balmer lines in five galaxies and use these to infer a mean visual extinction of AV = 2.68 mag. Due to non-detections and uncertainties in our Hβ emission line measurements, we simulate a broad Hβ line of FWHM = 1480 kms.1 to estimate extinction for all sources with measured Hα emission. We then use this to infer a mean AV = 3.62 mag, demonstrating the highly obscured nature of these galaxies, with the consequence of increasing our estimates of black hole masses by a 0.5 orders of magnitude in the most extreme and obscured cases.