Search arXiv⌕ Search
Home/Archive/arXiv

arXiv · 0809.3952

Efficient Photometric Selection of Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: II. ~1,000,000 Quasars from Data Release Six

Gordon T. Richards·Adam D. Myers·Alexander G. Gray·Ryan N. Riegel·Robert C. Nichol·Robert J. Brunner·Alexander S. Szalay·Donald P. Schneider·Scott F. Anderson
View original source ↗Read source document ↗Export metadata ↓

Abstract

We present a catalog of 1,172,157 quasar candidates selected from the photometric imaging data of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The objects are all point sources to a limiting magnitude of i=21.3 from 8417 sq. deg. of imaging from SDSS Data Release 6 (DR6). This sample extends our previous catalog by using the latest SDSS public release data and probing both UV-excess and high-redshift quasars. While the addition of high-redshift candidates reduces the overall efficiency (quasars:quasar candidates) of the catalog to ~80%, it is expected to contain no fewer than 850,000 bona fide quasars -- ~8 times the number of our previous sample, and ~10 times the size of the largest spectroscopic quasar catalog. Cross-matching between our photometric catalog and spectroscopic quasar catalogs from both the SDSS and 2dF Surveys, yields 88,879 spectroscopically confirmed quasars. For judicious selection of the most robust UV-excess sources (~500,000 objects in all), the efficiency is nearly 97% -- more than sufficient for detailed statistical analyses. The catalog's completeness to type 1 (broad-line) quasars is expected to be no worse than 70%, with most missing objects occurring at z<0.7 and 2.5<z<3.0. In addition to classification information, we provide photometric redshift estimates (typically good to Delta z +/- 0.3 [2 sigma]) and cross-matching with radio, X-ray, and proper motion catalogs. Finally, we consider the catalog's utility for determining the optical luminosity function of quasars and are able to confirm the flattening of the bright-end slope of the quasar luminosity function at z~4 as compared to z~2.

Explore related subjects

astro-ph

Keep this discovery

BibTeXRIS

Gordon T. Richards, Adam D. Myers, Alexander G. Gray, Ryan N. Riegel, Robert C. Nichol, Robert J. Brunner, Alexander S. Szalay, Donald P. Schneider, Scott F. Anderson. 2008-09-23. Efficient Photometric Selection of Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: II. ~1,000,000 Quasars from Data Release Six. https://doi.org/10.1088/0067-0049/180/1/67

Cite the original work for its findings. Save a collection to share your selection of sources.

KEEP EXPLORING

Related papers

arXiv2009

Cosmology from very high energy $γ$-rays

In this work we study how the cosmological parameter, the Hubble constant $H_0$, can be constrained by observation of very high energy (VHE) $γ$-rays at the TeV scale. The VHE $γ$-rays experience attenuation by background radiation field through $e^+e^-$ pair production during the propagation in the intergalactic space. This effect is proportional to the distance that the VHE $γ$-rays go through. Therefore the absorption of TeV $γ$-rays can be taken as cosmological distance indicator to constrain the cosmological parameters. Two blazars Mrk 501 and 1ES 1101-232, which have relatively good spectra measurements by the atmospheric Cerenkov telescope, are studied to constrain $H_0$. The mechanism constraining the Hubble constant adopted here is very different from the previous methods such as the observations of type Ia supernovae and the cosmic microwave background. However, at $2σ$ level, our result is consistent with other methods.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2009

Improved optical mass tracer for galaxy clusters calibrated using weak lensing measurements

We develop an improved mass tracer for clusters of galaxies from optically observed parameters, and calibrate the mass relation using weak gravitational lensing measurements. We employ a sample of ~ 13,000 optically-selected clusters from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) maxBCG catalog, with photometric redshifts in the range 0.1-0.3. The optical tracers we consider are cluster richness, cluster luminosity, luminosity of the brightest cluster galaxy (BCG), and combinations of these parameters. We measure the weak lensing signal around stacked clusters as a function of the various tracers, and use it to determine the tracer with the least amount of scatter. We further use the weak lensing data to calibrate the mass normalization. We find that the best mass estimator for massive clusters is a combination of cluster richness, N_{200}, and the luminosity of the brightest cluster galaxy, L_{BCG}: M_{200\barρ} = (1.27 +/- 0.08) (N_{200}/20)^{1.20 +/- 0.09} (L_{BCG}/\bar{L}_{BCG}(N_{200}))^{0.71 +/- 0.14} \times 10^{14} h^{-1} M_sun, where $\bar{L}_{BCG}(N_{200})$ is the observed mean BCG luminosity at a given richness. This improved mass tracer will enable the use of galaxy clusters as a more powerful tool for constraining cosmological parameters.

astro-ph↗
arXiv2009

Bayesian reconstruction of the cosmological large-scale structure: methodology, inverse algorithms and numerical optimization

We address the inverse problem of cosmic large-scale structure reconstruction from a Bayesian perspective. For a linear data model, a number of known and novel reconstruction schemes, which differ in terms of the underlying signal prior, data likelihood, and numerical inverse extra-regularization schemes are derived and classified. The Bayesian methodology presented in this paper tries to unify and extend the following methods: Wiener-filtering, Tikhonov regularization, Ridge regression, Maximum Entropy, and inverse regularization techniques. The inverse techniques considered here are the asymptotic regularization, the Jacobi, Steepest Descent, Newton-Raphson, Landweber-Fridman, and both linear and non-linear Krylov methods based on Fletcher-Reeves, Polak-Ribiere, and Hestenes-Stiefel Conjugate Gradients. The structures of the up-to-date highest-performing algorithms are presented, based on an operator scheme, which permits one to exploit the power of fast Fourier transforms. Using such an implementation of the generalized Wiener-filter in the novel ARGO-software package, the different numerical schemes are benchmarked with 1-, 2-, and 3-dimensional problems including structured white and Poissonian noise, data windowing and blurring effects. A novel numerical Krylov scheme is shown to be superior in terms of performance and fidelity. These fast inverse methods ultimately will enable the application of sampling techniques to explore complex joint posterior distributions. We outline how the space of the dark-matter density field, the peculiar velocity field, and the power spectrum can jointly be investigated by a Gibbs-sampling process. Such a method can be applied for the redshift distortions correction of the observed galaxies and for time-reversal reconstructions of the initial density field.

astro-ph↗