We measure the two-point clustering of spectroscopically confirmed quasars from the final sample of the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) on comoving scales of 4 ≲ s ≲ 22 h
−1 Mpc. The ...sample covers 6950 deg2 ∼ 19 (h
− 1Gpc)3 and, over the redshift range 2.2 ≤ z ≤ 2.8, contains 55 826 homogeneously selected quasars, which is twice as many as in any similar work. We deduce b
Q = 3.54 ± 0.10; the most precise measurement of quasar bias to date at these redshifts. This corresponds to a host halo mass of ∼2 × 1012 h
−1 M⊙ with an implied quasar duty cycle of ∼1 per cent. The real-space projected correlation function is well fitted by a power law of index 2 and correlation length r
0 = (8.12 ± 0.22) h
− 1 Mpc over scales of 4 ≲ r
p ≲ 25 h
−1 Mpc. To better study the evolution of quasar clustering at moderate redshift, we extend the redshift range of our study to z ∼ 3.4 and measure the bias and correlation length of three subsamples over 2.2 ≤ z ≤ 3.4. We find no significant evolution of r
0 or bias over this range, implying that the host halo mass of quasars decreases somewhat with increasing redshift. We find quasar clustering remains similar over a decade in luminosity, contradicting a scenario in which quasar luminosity is monotonically related to halo mass at z ≈ 2.5. Our results are broadly consistent with previous BOSS measurements, but they yield more precise constraints based upon a larger and more uniform data set.
ABSTRACT As part of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) IV the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) will improve measurements of the cosmological distance scale by applying the ...Baryon Acoustic Oscillation (BAO) method to quasar samples. eBOSS will adopt two approaches to target quasars over 7500 deg2. First, a "CORE" quasar sample will combine the optical selection in ugriz using a likelihood-based routine called XDQSOz, with a mid-IR-optical color cut. eBOSS CORE selection (to g < 22 or r < 22) should return ∼70 deg−2 quasars at redshifts 0.9 < z < 2.2 and ∼7 deg−2z > 2.1 quasars. Second, a selection based on variability in multi-epoch imaging from the Palomar Transient Factory should recover an additional ∼3-4 deg−2z > 2.1 quasars to g < 22.5. A linear model of how imaging systematics affect target density recovers the angular distribution of eBOSS CORE quasars over 96.7% (76.7%) of the SDSS north (south) Galactic Cap area. The eBOSS CORE quasar sample should thus be sufficiently dense and homogeneous over 0.9 < z < 2.2 to yield the first few-percent-level BAO constraint near eBOSS quasars at z > 2.1 will be used to improve BAO measurements in the Ly Forest. Beyond its key cosmological goals, eBOSS should be the next-generation quasar survey, comprising >500,000 new quasars and >500,000 uniformly selected spectroscopically confirmed 0.9 < z < 2.2 quasars. At the conclusion of eBOSS, the SDSS will have provided unique spectra for more than 800,000 quasars.
Abstract
Nine point sources appeared within half an hour on a region within
$$\sim $$
∼
10 arcmin of a red-sensitive photographic plate taken in April 1950 as part of the historic Palomar Sky Survey. ...All nine sources are absent on both previous and later photographic images, and absent in modern surveys with CCD detectors which go several magnitudes deeper. We present deep CCD images with the 10.4-m Gran Telescopio Canarias, reaching brightness
$$r \sim 26$$
r
∼
26
mag, that reveal possible optical counterparts, although these counterparts could equally well be just chance projections. The incidence of transients in the investigated photographic plate is far higher than expected from known detection rates of optical counterparts to e.g. flaring dwarf stars, Fast Radio Bursts, Gamma Ray Bursts or microlensing events. One possible explanation is that the plates have been subjected to an unknown type of contamination producing mainly point sources with of varying intensities along with some mechanism of concentration within a radius of
$$\sim $$
∼
10 arcmin on the plate. If contamination as an explanation can be fully excluded, another possibility is fast (t
$$<0.5$$
<
0.5
s) solar reflections from objects near geosynchronous orbits. An alternative route to confirm the latter scenario is by looking for images from the First Palomar Sky Survey where multiple transients follow a line.
In this paper we describe and publicly release a catalogue consisting of 8445 point-like X-ray sources detected in the XMM-XXL north survey. For the 2512 AGN which have reliable spectroscopy from ...SDSS-III/BOSS, we present the X-ray spectral fitting which has been computed with a Bayesian approach. We have also applied an X-ray spectral stacking method to different sub-samples, selected on the basis of the AGN physical properties (L
2−10 keV, z, M
BH, λEdd and N
H). We confirm the well-known Iwasawa–Taniguchi effect in our luminosity–redshift sub-samples, and argue that such an effect is due to a decrease in the covering factor of a distant obscuring ‘torus’ with increasing X-ray luminosity. By comparing the distribution of the reflection fraction, the ratio of the normalization of the reflected component to the direct radiation, we find that the low-luminosity, low-redshift sub-sample had systematically higher reflection fraction values than the high-redshift, high-luminosity one. On the other hand, no significant difference is found between samples having similar luminosity but different redshift, suggesting that the structure of the torus does not evolve strongly with redshift. Contrary to previous works, we do not find evidence for an increasing photon index at high Eddington ratio. This may be an indication that the structure of the accretion disc changes as the Eddington ratio approaches unity. Comparing our X-ray spectral analysis results with the optical spectral classification, we find that ∼20 per cent of optical type-1 AGN show an X-ray absorbing column density higher than 1021.5 cm− 2, and about 50 per cent of type-2 AGN have an X-ray absorbing column density less than 1021.5 cm− 2. We suggest that the excess X-ray absorption shown in the high-luminosity optical type-1 AGN can be due to small-scale dust-free gas within (or close to) the broad-line region, while in the low-luminosity ones it can be due to a clumpy torus with a large covering factor.
Abstract
We extract cosmological information from the anisotropic power-spectrum measurements from the recently completed Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS), extending the concept of ...clustering wedges to Fourier space. Making use of new fast-Fourier-transform-based estimators, we measure the power-spectrum clustering wedges of the BOSS sample by filtering out the information of Legendre multipoles ℓ > 4. Our modelling of these measurements is based on novel approaches to describe non-linear evolution, bias and redshift-space distortions, which we test using synthetic catalogues based on large-volume N-body simulations. We are able to include smaller scales than in previous analyses, resulting in tighter cosmological constraints. Using three overlapping redshift bins, we measure the angular-diameter distance, the Hubble parameter and the cosmic growth rate, and explore the cosmological implications of our full-shape clustering measurements in combination with cosmic microwave background and Type Ia supernova data. Assuming a Λ cold dark matter (ΛCDM) cosmology, we constrain the matter density to $\Omega _{\mathrm{M}}= 0.311_{-0.010}^{+0.009}$ and the Hubble parameter to $H_0 = 67.6_{-0.6}^{+0.7} \, \, \mathrm{km \, s^{-1} \, Mpc^{-1}}$, at a confidence level of 68 per cent. We also allow for non-standard dark energy models and modifications of the growth rate, finding good agreement with the ΛCDM paradigm. For example, we constrain the equation-of-state parameter to $w = -1.019_{-0.039}^{+0.048}$. This paper is part of a set that analyses the final galaxy-clustering data set from BOSS. The measurements and likelihoods presented here are combined with others in Alam et al. to produce the final cosmological constraints from BOSS.
Abstract
This paper presents stellar mass functions and i-band luminosity functions for Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) galaxies with i < 21 using clustering redshifts. From these measurements, we ...also compute targeting completeness measurements for the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS). Clustering redshifts is a method of obtaining the redshift distribution of a sample of galaxies with only photometric information by measuring the angular cross-correlation with a spectroscopic sample in different redshift bins. We construct a spectroscopic sample containing data from the BOSS + eBOSS surveys, allowing us to recover redshift distributions from photometric data out to z ≃ 2.5. We produce k-corrected i-band luminosity functions and stellar mass functions by applying clustering redshifts to SDSS DR8 galaxies in small bins of colour and magnitude. There is little evolution in the mass function between 0.2 < z < 0.8, implying that the most massive galaxies form most of their mass before z = 0.8. These mass functions are used to produce stellar mass completeness estimates for the BOSS, giving a stellar mass completeness of $80{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ above M⋆ > 1011.4 between 0.2 < z < 0.7, with completeness falling significantly at redshifts higher than 0.7, and at lower masses. Large photometric data sets will be available in the near future (DECaLS, DES, Euclid), so this and similar techniques will become increasingly useful in order to fully utilize these data.
Abstract
We present a Bayesian phase-space reconstruction of the cosmic large-scale matter density and velocity fields from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Baryon Oscillations Spectroscopic Survey ...Data Release 12 CMASS galaxy clustering catalogue. We rely on a given Λ cold dark matter cosmology, a mesh resolution in the range of 6–10 h−1 Mpc, and a lognormal-Poisson model with a redshift-dependent non-linear bias. The bias parameters are derived from the data and a general renormalized perturbation theory approach. We use combined Gibbs and Hamiltonian sampling, implemented in the argo code, to iteratively reconstruct the dark matter density field and the coherent peculiar velocities of individual galaxies, correcting hereby for coherent redshift space distortions. Our tests relying on accurate N-body-based mock galaxy catalogues show unbiased real space power spectra of the non-linear density field up to k ∼ 0.2 h Mpc−1, and vanishing quadrupoles down to r ∼ 20 h−1 Mpc. We also demonstrate that the non-linear cosmic web can be obtained from the tidal field tensor based on the Gaussian component of the reconstructed density field. We find that the reconstructed velocities have a statistical correlation coefficient compared to the true velocities of each individual light-cone mock galaxy of r ∼ 0.68 including about 10 per cent of satellite galaxies with virial motions (about r = 0.75 without satellites). The power spectra of the velocity divergence agree well with theoretical predictions up to k ∼ 0.2 h Mpc−1. This work will be especially useful to improve, for example, baryon acoustic oscillation reconstructions, kinematic Sunyaev–Zeldovich, integrated Sachs–Wolfe measurements or environmental studies.
We report on the detailed analysis of a gravitationally lensed Y-band dropout, A2744_YD4, selected from deep Hubble Space Telescope imaging in the Frontier Field cluster Abell 2744. Band 7 ...observations with the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) indicate the proximate detection of a significant 1 mm continuum flux suggesting the presence of dust for a star-forming galaxy with a photometric redshift of . Deep X-SHOOTER spectra confirms the high-redshift identity of A2744_YD4 via the detection of Ly emission at a redshift z = 8.38. The association with the ALMA detection is confirmed by the presence of O iii 88 m emission at the same redshift. Although both emission features are only significant at the 4 level, we argue their joint detection and the positional coincidence with a high-redshift dropout in the Hubble Space Telescope images confirms the physical association. Analysis of the available photometric data and the modest gravitational magnification ( ) indicates A2744_YD4 has a stellar mass of ∼2 × 109 , a star formation rate of ∼20 yr−1 and a dust mass of ∼6 × 106 . We discuss the implications of the formation of such a dust mass only after the onset of cosmic reionization.
We present the final Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) quasar catalog from Data Release 16 of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS). This catalog comprises the largest ...selection of spectroscopically confirmed quasars to date. The full catalog includes two subcatalogs (the current versions are DR16Q_v4 and DR16Q_Superset_v3 at https://data.sdss.org/sas/dr16/eboss/qso/DR16Q/): a "superset" of all SDSS-IV/eBOSS objects targeted as quasars containing 1,440,615 observations and a quasar-only catalog containing 750,414 quasars, including 225,082 new quasars appearing in an SDSS data release for the first time, as well as known quasars from SDSS-I/II/III. We present automated identification and redshift information for these quasars alongside data from visual inspections for 320,161 spectra. The quasar-only catalog is estimated to be 99.8% complete with 0.3%-1.3% contamination. Automated and visual inspection redshifts are supplemented by redshifts derived via principal component analysis and emission lines. We include emission-line redshifts for H , Hβ, Mg ii, C iii, C iv, and Ly . Identification and key characteristics generated by automated algorithms are presented for 99,856 broad absorption-line quasars and 35,686 damped Lyman alpha quasars. In addition to SDSS photometric data, we also present multiwavelength data for quasars from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer, UKIDSS, the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, FIRST, ROSAT/2RXS, XMM-Newton, and Gaia. Calibrated digital optical spectra for these quasars can be obtained from the SDSS Science Archive Server.
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