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The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Twelfth data release

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Pâris, I 
Petitjean, P 
Ross, NP 
Myers, AD 
Aubourg, É 

Abstract

jats:pWe present the Data Release 12 Quasar catalog (DR12Q) from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III. This catalog includes all SDSS-III/BOSS objects that were spectroscopically targeted as quasar candidates during the full survey and that are confirmed as quasars via visual inspection of the spectra, have luminosities jats:italicM</jats:italic>jats:subi</jats:sub> [jats:italicz</jats:italic> = 2] < −20.5 (in a ΛCDM cosmology with jats:italicH</jats:italic>jats:sub0</jats:sub> = 70 km sjats:sup-1</jats:sup> Mpcjats:sup-1</jats:sup>, Ωjats:subM</jats:sub> = 0.3, and Ωjats:subΛ</jats:sub> = 0.7), and either display at least one emission line with a full width at half maximum (FWHM) larger than 500 km sjats:sup-1</jats:sup> or, if not, have interesting/complex absorption features. The catalog also includes previously known quasars (mostly from SDSS-I and II) that were reobserved by BOSS. The catalog contains 297 301 quasars (272 026 are new discoveries since the beginning of SDSS-III) detected over 9376 degjats:sup2</jats:sup> with robust identification and redshift measured by a combination of principal component eigenspectra. The number of quasars with jats:italicz</jats:italic> > 2.15 (184 101, of which 167 742 are new discoveries) is about an order of magnitude greater than the number of jats:italicz</jats:italic> > 2.15 quasars known prior to BOSS. Redshifts and FWHMs are provided for the strongest emission lines (C jats:sciv</jats:sc>, C jats:sciii]</jats:sc>, Mg jats:scii</jats:sc>). The catalog identifies 29 580 broad absorption line quasars and lists their characteristics. For each object, the catalog presents five-band (jats:italicu</jats:italic>, jats:italicg</jats:italic>, jats:italicr</jats:italic>, jats:italici</jats:italic>, jats:italicz</jats:italic>) CCD-based photometry with typical accuracy of 0.03 mag together with some information on the optical morphology and the selection criteria. When available, the catalog also provides information on the optical variability of quasars using SDSS and Palomar Transient Factory multi-epoch photometry. The catalog also contains X-ray, ultraviolet, near-infrared, and radio emission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area surveys. The calibrated digital spectra, covering the wavelength region 3600–10 500 Å at a spectral resolution in the range 1300 < jats:italicR</jats:italic> < 2500, can be retrieved from the SDSS Catalog Archive Server. We also provide a supplemental list of an additional 4841 quasars that have been identified serendipitously outside of the superset defined to derive the main quasar catalog. </jats:p>

Description

Keywords

catalogs, surveys, quasars: general

Journal Title

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

0004-6361
1432-0746

Volume Title

Publisher

EDP Sciences
Sponsorship
Science and Technology Facilities Council (ST/N000927/1)
National Science Foundation Acknowledgements I.P. was supported by PRIN INAF 2012 "The X-Shooter sample of 100 quasar spectra at z-3.5: Digging into cosmology and galaxy evolution with quasar absorption lines". This work has been carried out thanks to the support of the A*MIDEX project (ANR- 11-IDEX-0001-02) funded by the “Investissements d’Avenir” French Government program, managed by the French National Research Agency (ANR). The French Participation Group to SDSS-III was supported by the Agence Nationale de la Recherche under contracts ANR- 08-BLAN-0222 and ANR-12-BS05-0015. A.D.M was partially supported by NASA ADAP award NNX12AE38G and by NSF awards 1211112 and 1515404. W.N.B. was supported by NSF grant AST-1516784. I.P. thanks S. Twain, D. Ho ff , D. Dintei and Brian A.J. Richardson for their in- spiring contribution to this work. Funding for SDSS-III has been provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Founda- tion, the Participating Institutions, the National Science Foundation, and the U.S. Department of Energy O ffi ce of Science. The SDSS-III web site is http: // www.sdss3.org / . SDSS-III is managed by the Astrophysical Research Con- sortium for the Participating Institutions of the SDSS-III Collaboration including the University of Arizona, the Brazilian Participation Group, Brookhaven Na- tional Laboratory, Carnegie Mellon University, University of Florida, the French Participation Group, the German Participation Group, Harvard University, the Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias, the Michigan State / Notre Dame / JINA Par- ticipation Group, Johns Hopkins University, Lawrence Berkeley National Labo- ratory, Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Max Planck Institute for Extrater- restrial Physics, New Mexico State University, New York University, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania State University, University of Portsmouth, Princeton University, the Spanish Participation Group, University of Tokyo, University of Utah, Vanderbilt University, University of Virginia, University of Washington, and Yale University. AllWISE makes use of data from WISE, which is a joint project of the Uni- versity of California, Los Angeles, and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory / California Institute of Technology, and NEOWISE, which is a project of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory / California Institute of Technology. WISE and NEOWISE are funded by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration. This research used resources of the National Energy Research Scientific Com- puting Center, a DOE O ffi ce of Science User Facility supported by the O ffi ce of Science of the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02- 05CH11231.