Description
Although more than 160 quasars have now been discovered at z > 6, little is known of their origins or early evolution for certain because observations to date have been limited to z = 7.5. This picture will soon change with the advent of the E-ELT and TMT, whose high sensitivities could allow them to detect these rare black holes at much earlier times. I will present synthetic NIR AB magnitudes at z = 6 - 20 for every stage of primordial quasar evolution: the birth of a supermassive Pop III star (SMS), its collapse to a direct-collapse black hole (DCBH), and its subsequent growth in cold accretion flows to ~ 10^9 solar masses by z ~ 7. We find that THE E-ELT could detect a SMS and DCBH out to z ~ 15 and capture these quasars at later stages of evolution down to z ~ 7. In particular, there is an excellent opportunity for synergies in which quasar candidates could be identified by wide-field surveys by Euclid or WFIRST and followed up in spectroscopic detail by E-ELT.
