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791. SDSS-DR7 broad-line QSOs
ID:
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/804/L15
Title:
SDSS-DR7 broad-line QSOs
Short Name:
J/ApJ/804/L15
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
The diverse properties of broad-line quasars appear to follow a well-defined main sequence along which the optical FeII strength increases. It has been suggested that this sequence is mainly driven by the Eddington ratio (L/L_Edd_) of the black hole (BH) accretion. Shen & Ho (2014Natur.513..210S) demonstrated with quasar clustering analysis that the average BH mass decreases with increasing FeII strength when quasar luminosity is fixed, consistent with this suggestion. Here we perform an independent test by measuring the stellar velocity dispersion {sigma}_*_ (hence, the BH mass via the M-{sigma}_*_ relation) from decomposed host spectra in low-redshift Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasars. We found that at fixed quasar luminosity, {sigma}_*_ systematically decreases with increasing FeII strength, confirming that the Eddington ratio increases with FeII strength. We also found that at fixed luminosity and FeII strength, there is little dependence of {sigma}_*_ on the broad H{beta} FWHM. These new results reinforce the framework that the Eddington ratio and orientation govern most of the diversity seen in broad-line quasar properties.
792. SDSS DR10 catalogue of candidate quasars
ID:
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/450/3893
Title:
SDSS DR10 catalogue of candidate quasars
Short Name:
J/MNRAS/450/3893
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
We discuss whether modern machine learning methods can be used to characterize the physical nature of the large number of objects sampled by the modern multi-band digital surveys. In particular, we applied the MLPQNA (Multi Layer Perceptron with Quasi Newton Algorithm) method to the optical data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey - Data Release 10, investigating whether photometric data alone suffice to disentangle different classes of objects as they are defined in the SDSS spectroscopic classification. We discuss three groups of classification problems: (i) the simultaneous classification of galaxies, quasars and stars; (ii) the separation of stars from quasars; (iii) the separation of galaxies with normal spectral energy distribution from those with peculiar spectra, such as starburst or starforming galaxies and AGN. While confirming the difficulty of disentangling AGN from normal galaxies on a photometric basis only, MLPQNA proved to be quite effective in the three-class separation. In disentangling quasars from stars and galaxies, our method achieved an overall efficiency of 91.31% and a QSO class purity of ~95%. The resulting catalogue of candidate quasars/AGNs consists of ~3.6 million objects, of which about half a million are also flagged as robust candidates.
793. SDSSDR12 eclipsing damped Lyalpha systems
ID:
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/477/5625
Title:
SDSSDR12 eclipsing damped Lyalpha systems
Short Name:
J/MNRAS/477/5625
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
We present the results of our automatic search for proximate damped Ly{alpha} absorption (PDLA) systems in the quasar spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 12. We constrain our search to those PDLAs lying within 1500km/s from the quasar to make sure that the broad DLA absorption trough masks most of the strong Ly{alpha} emission from the broad-line region (BLR) of the quasar. When the Ly{alpha} emission from the BLR is blocked by these so-called eclipsing DLAs, narrow Ly{alpha} emission from the host galaxy could be revealed as a narrow emission line (NEL) in the DLA trough. We define a statistical sample of 399 eclipsing DLAs with logN(HI)>=21.10. We divide our statistical sample into three subsamples based on the strength of the NEL detected in the DLA trough. By studying the stacked spectra of these subsamples, we found that absorptions from high ionization species are stronger in DLAs with stronger NEL in their absorption core. Moreover, absorption from the excited states of species like SIII are also stronger in DLAs with stronger NEL. We also found no correlation between the luminosity of the Ly{alpha} NEL and the quasar luminosity. These observations are consistent with a scenario in which the DLAs with stronger NEL are denser and physically closer to the quasar. We propose that these eclipsing DLAs could be the product of the interaction between infalling and outflowing gas. High-resolution spectroscopic observation would be needed to shed some light on the nature of these eclipsing DLAs.
794. SDSS DR3 flat-spectrum radio quasars
ID:
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/397/1713
Title:
SDSS DR3 flat-spectrum radio quasars
Short Name:
J/MNRAS/397/1713
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
We constructed a sample of 185 flat-spectrum radio quasars (FSRQs) by cross-correlating Shen et al.'s (2006MNRAS.369.1639S) Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 3 (SDSS DR3) X-ray quasar sample with the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty Centimeters (FIRST) and Green Bank 6-cm survey (GB6) radio catalogues. From the spectral energy distribution (SED) constructed using multi-band (radio, UV, optical, infrared and X-ray) data, we derived the synchrotron peak frequency and peak luminosity. The black hole mass MBH and the broad-line region (BLR) luminosity (then the bolometric luminosity Lbol) were obtained by measuring the linewidth and strength of broad emission lines from SDSS spectra. We define a subsample of 118 FSRQs for which non-thermal jet emission is thought to dominate over thermal emission from the accretion disc and host galaxy.
795. SDSS DR7 galaxy/QSOs pairs
ID:
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/142/122
Title:
SDSS DR7 galaxy/QSOs pairs
Short Name:
J/AJ/142/122
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
The aim of this project is to identify low-redshift host galaxies of quasar absorption-line systems by selecting galaxies that are seen in projection onto quasar sightlines. To this end, we use the Seventh Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to construct a parent sample of 97489 galaxy/quasar projections at impact parameters of up to 100 kpc to the foreground galaxy. We then search the quasar spectra for absorption-line systems of CaII and NaI within +/-500km/s1 of the galaxy's velocity. This yields 92 CaII and 16 NaI absorption systems.
796. SDSS-DR3 MgII-based black hole masses
ID:
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJS/194/42
Title:
SDSS-DR3 MgII-based black hole masses
Short Name:
J/ApJS/194/42
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
We present MgII-based black hole (BH) mass estimates for 27602 quasars with rest-frame UV spectra available in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release Three (Cat. II/259; superseded by II/294). This estimation is possible due to the existence of an empirical correlation between the radius of the broad-line region (BLR) and the continuum luminosity at 3000{AA}. We regenerate this correlation by applying our measurement method to UV spectra of low-redshift quasars in the Hubble Space Telescope/International Ultraviolet Explorer databases which have corresponding reverberation mapping estimates of the H{beta} BLR's radius. Our mass estimation method uses the line dispersion rather than the full width at half-maximum of the low-ionization MgII emission line.
797. SDSS-DR3 OVI QSOs absorbers
ID:
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/AJ/140/817
Title:
SDSS-DR3 OVI QSOs absorbers
Short Name:
J/AJ/140/817
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
We report the results of a systematic search for signatures of metal lines in quasar spectra of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data release 3 (DR3), focusing on finding intervening absorbers via detection of their OVI doublet. Here, we present the search algorithm and criteria for distinguishing candidates from spurious Ly{alpha} forest lines. In addition, we compare our findings with simulations of the Ly{alpha} forest in order to estimate the detectability of OVI doublets over various redshift intervals. We have obtained a sample of 1756 OVI doublet candidates with rest-frame equivalent width (EW)>=0.05{AA} in 855 active galactic nuclei spectra (out of 3702 objects with redshifts in the accessible range for OVI detection).
798. SDSS DR2 QSO and DLA properties
ID:
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/354/L31
Title:
SDSS DR2 QSO and DLA properties
Short Name:
J/MNRAS/354/L31
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
We use Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 2 quasi-stellar object (QSO) spectra to constrain the dust-reddening caused by intervening damped Lyman {alpha} systems (DLAs). Comparing the spectral index distribution of a 70 sight-line DLA sample with that of a large control sample reveals no evidence for dust-reddening at z~3.
799. SDSS DR12 QSOs [OIII] doublet
ID:
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/452/4153
Title:
SDSS DR12 QSOs [OIII] doublet
Short Name:
J/MNRAS/452/4153
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 12, which covers the full Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) footprint, we investigate the possible variation of the fine-structure constant over cosmological time-scales. We analyse the largest quasar sample considered so far in the literature, which contains 13175 spectra (10363 from SDSS-III/BOSS DR12+2812 from SDSS-II DR7) with redshift z<1. We apply the emission-line method on the [OIII] doublet ({lambda}{lambda}4960, 5008{AA}) and obtain {Delta}{alpha}/{alpha}=(0.9+/-1.8)x10^-5^ for the relative variation of the fine-structure constant. We also investigate the possible sources of systematics: misidentification of the lines, sky OH lines, H{beta} and broad line contamination, Gaussian and Voigt fitting profiles, optimal wavelength range for the Gaussian fits, chosen polynomial order for the continuum spectrum, signal-to-noise ratio and good quality of the fits. The uncertainty of the measurement is dominated by the sky subtraction. The results presented in this work, being systematics limited, have sufficient statistics to constrain robustly the variation of the fine-structure constant in redshift bins ({Delta}z~0.06) over the last 7.9Gyr. In addition, we study the [NeIII] doublet ({lambda}{lambda}3869, 3968{AA}) present in 462 quasar spectra and discuss the systematic effects on using these emission lines to constrain the fine-structure constant variation. Better constraints on {Delta}{alpha}/{alpha}(<10^-6^) using the emission-line method would be possible with high-resolution spectroscopy and large galaxy/qso surveys.
800. SDSS DR7 QSOs spectral doppelgangers
ID:
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/464/553
Title:
SDSS DR7 QSOs spectral doppelgangers
Short Name:
J/MNRAS/464/553
Date:
21 Oct 2021
Publisher:
CDS
Description:
The spectrum of a quasar contains important information about its properties. Thus, it can be expected that two quasars with similar spectra will have similar properties, but just how similar has not before been quantified. Here we compare the ultraviolet spectra of a sample of 5553 quasars from Data Release 7 of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, focusing on the 1350{AA}<={lambda}<=2900{AA} rest-frame region which contains prominent emission lines from SiIV, OIV], CIV, CIII], and MgII species. We use principal component analysis to determine the dominant components of spectral variation, as well as to quantitatively measure spectral similarity. As suggested by both the Baldwin effect and modified Baldwin effect, quasars with similar spectra have similar properties: bolometric luminosity, Eddington fraction, and black hole mass. The latter two quantities are calculated from the luminosity in conjunction with spectral features, and the variation between quasars with virtually identical spectra (which we call doppelgangers) is driven by the variance in the luminosity plus measurement uncertainties. In the doppelgangers the luminosity differences show 1{sigma} uncertainties of 57 per cent (or 0.63mag) and ~70 per cent 1{sigma} uncertainties for mass and Eddington fraction. Much of the difference in luminosities may be attributable to time lags between the spectral lines and the continuum. Furthermore, we find that suggestions that the mostly highly accreting quasars should be better standard candles than other quasars are not borne out for doppelgangers. Finally, we discuss the implications for using quasars as cosmological probes and the nature of the first two spectral principal components.