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Register a new userA slitless spectroscopic survey for quasars near quasars
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We present the results of the Quasars near Quasars (QNQ) survey, a CCD-based slitless spectroscopic survey for faint V<22 quasars at 1.7<z<3.6 on 18 26.2x33.5 fields centred on bright quasars at 2.76<z<4.69. In total 169 quasar candidates with emission lines were selected from the extracted flux-calibrated spectra on the basis of well-defined automatic selection criteria followed by visual inspection and verification. With follow-up spectroscopy of 81 candidates that were likely to reside at z>1.7 we were able to confirm 80 new quasars at 0.580<z<3.586 on 16 of our fields. 64 of the newly discovered quasars are located at z>1.7. The overall high success rate implies that most of the remaining 88 candidates are quasars as well, although the majority of them likely resides at z<1.7 on the basis of the observed line shapes and strengths. Due to the insufficient depth of the input source catalogues needed for extraction of the slitless spectra our survey is not well defined in terms of limiting magnitude for faint 2.5<z<3.6 quasars whose Lyman alpha emission is detectable well beyond V=22, albeit at a continuum S/N<1. While not useful for characterising the evolving space density of quasars, our sample provides many new closely spaced quasar sightlines around intensely studied quasars for further investigations on the three-dimensional distribution of the intergalactic medium.
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With close pairs of quasars at different redshifts, a background quasar sightline can be used to study a foreground quasars environment in absorption. We search 149 moderate resolution background quasar spectra, from Gemini, Keck, the MMT, and the SDSS to survey Lyman Limit Systems (LLSs) and Damped Ly-alpha systems (DLAs) in the vicinity of 1.8 < z < 4.0 luminous foreground quasars. A sample of 27 new quasar-absorber pairs is uncovered with column densities, 17.2 < log (N_HI/cm^2) < 20.9, and transverse (proper) distances of 22 kpc/h < R < 1.7 Mpc/h, from the foreground quasars. If they emit isotropically, the implied ionizing photon fluxes are a factor of ~ 5-8000 times larger than the ambient extragalactic UV background over this range of distances. The observed probability of intercepting an absorber is very high for small separations: six out of eight projected sightlines with transverse separations R < 150 kpc/h have an absorber coincident with the foreground quasar, of which four have log N_HI > 10^19. The covering factor of log N_HI > 10^19 absorbers is thus ~ 50 % (4/8) on these small scales, whereas < 2% would have been expected at random. There are many cosmological applications of these new sightlines: they provide laboratories for studying fluorescent Ly-alpha recombination radiation from LLSs, constrain the environments, emission geometry, and radiative histories of quasars, and shed light on the physical nature of LLSs and DLAs.
This paper checks on the roles of metallicity and evolutionary age in the appearance of the so-called Be phenomenon. Slitless CCD spectra were obtained covering the bulk of the Small Magellanic Cloud. For Halpha line emission twice as strong as the ambient continuum, the survey is complete to spectral type B2/B3 on the main sequence. About 8120 spectra of 4437 stars were searched for emission lines in 84 open clusters. 370 emission-line stars were found, among them at least 231 near the main sequence. For 176 of them, photometry could be found in the OGLE database. For comparison with a higher-metallicity environment, the Galactic sample of the photometric Halpha survey by McSwain & Gies (2005) was used. Among early spectral sub-types, Be stars are more frequent by a factor 3-5 in the SMC than in the Galaxy. The distribution with spectral type is similar in both galaxies, i.e. not strongly dependent on metallicity. The fraction of Be stars does not seem to vary with local star density. The Be phenomenon mainly sets in towards the end of the main-sequence evolution (this trend may be more pronounced in the SMC); but some Be stars already form with Be-star characteristics. In all probability, the fractional critical angular rotation rate, omc, is one of the main parameters governing the occurrence of the Be phenomenon. If the Be character is only acquired during the course of evolution, the key circumstance is the evolution of omc, which not only is dependent on metallicity but differently so for different mass ranges.
X-ray observations provide a unique probe of the accretion disk corona of supermassive black holes (SMBHs). In this paper, we present a uniform emph{Chandra} X-ray data analysis of a sample of 152 $zgeq4.5$ quasars. We firmly detect 46 quasars of this sample in 0.5-2~keV above 3~$sigma$ and calculate the upper limits of the X-ray flux of the remaining. We also estimate the power law photon index of the X-ray spectrum of 31 quasars. 24 of our sample quasars are detected in the FIRST or NVSS radio surveys; all of them are radio-loud. We statistically compare the X-ray properties of our $zgeq4.5$ quasars to other X-ray samples of AGN at different redshifts. The relation between the rest-frame X-ray luminosity and other quasar parameters, such as the bolometric luminosity, UV luminosity, or SMBH mass, show large scatters. These large scatters can be attributed to the narrow luminosity range at the highest redshift, the large measurement error based on relatively poor X-ray data, and the inclusion of radio-loud quasars in the sample. The $L_{rm X}-L_{rm UV}$ relationship is significantly sub-linear. We do not find a significant redshift evolution of the $L_{rm X}-L_{rm UV}$ relation, expressed either in the slope of this relation, or the departure of individual AGNs from the best-fit $alpha_{rm OX}-L_{rm UV}$ relation ($Deltaalpha_{rm OX}$). The median value of the X-ray photon index is $Gammaapprox1.79$, which does not show redshift evolution from $z=0$ to $zsim7$. The X-ray and UV properties of the most distant quasars could potentially be used as a standard candle to constrain cosmological models. The large scatter of our sample on the Hubble diagram highlights the importance of future large unbiased deep X-ray and radio surveys in using quasars in cosmological studies.
We present spectroscopic measurements for 226 sources from the Gemini Near Infrared Spectrograph - Distant Quasar Survey (GNIRS-DQS). Being the largest uniform, homogeneous survey of its kind, it represents a flux-limited sample ($m_{i}$ ${lesssim}$ 19.0 mag, $H$ ${lesssim}$ 16.5 mag) of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasars at 1.5 ${lesssim}$ $z$ ${lesssim}$ 3.5 with a monochromatic luminosity (${lambda}L_{lambda}$) at 5100 ${unicode{xC5}}$ in the range of $10^{44} - 10^{46}$ erg $rm{s}^{-1}$. A combination of the GNIRS and SDSS spectra covers principal quasar diagnostic features, chiefly the C IV ${lambda}$1549, Mg II ${lambda}{lambda}$2798, 2803, H${beta}$ ${lambda}$4861, and [O III] ${lambda}{lambda}$4959, 5007 emission lines, in each source. The spectral inventory will be utilized primarily to develop prescriptions for obtaining more accurate and precise redshifts, black hole masses, and accretion rates for all quasars. Additionally, the measurements will facilitate an understanding of the dependence of rest-frame ultraviolet-optical spectral properties of quasars on redshift, luminosity, and Eddington ratio, and test whether the physical properties of the quasar central engine evolve over cosmic time.
A gravitational lens (GL)-search program, initiated in 1990 at the Nordic Optical Telescope (NOT), has revealed several possible GL-candidates among a sample of 168 quasars (QSOs), chosen from three lists compiled by C. Hazard, D. Reimers and J. Surdej, respectively. Some of these candidates, selected for having close companions (within 5 arcseconds), were imaged in several filters and their colours compared. Low dispersion spectra of the most promising candidates were also obtained at the NOT and ESO New Technology Telescope (NTT). None of these has proved to be strong candidates of gravitational lensing effects. We present this new sample of QSOs and combine it with previously published optical QSO samples in a statistical analysis to yield constraints on flat cosmologies and galaxy velocity dispersions. Finally, by simulating larger samples of quasars and gravitational lenses, we discuss how the uncertainties affecting our present results would be changed.
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