Description
We report the results from a deep Hubble Space Telescope (HST) NICMOS H-band imaging survey of 28 z<0.3 QSOs from the Palomar-Green (PG) sample. This program is part of QUEST (Quasar/ULIRG Evolution Study) and complements a similar set of data on 26 highly nucleated ULIRGs presented in Paper I (Veilleux et al. 2006ApJ...643..707V). Our analysis indicates that the fraction of QSOs with elliptical hosts is higher among QSOs with undetected far-infrared (FIR) emission, small infrared excess (L_IR_/L_B_<10), and luminous hosts. The hosts of FIR-faint QSOs show a tendency to have less pronounced merger-induced morphological anomalies and larger QSO-to-host luminosity ratios on average than the hosts of FIR-bright QSOs, consistent with late-merger evolution from FIR-bright to FIR-faint QSOs.
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