Near Infrared Photometric Properties of 130,000 Quasars: A SDSS-ULAS Catalog and the K-band Quasar Luminosity Functions
Open Access
Author:
Peth, Michael Andrew
Area of Honors:
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Degree:
Bachelor of Science
Document Type:
Thesis
Thesis Supervisors:
Donald P Schneider, Thesis Supervisor Donald P Schneider, Thesis Supervisor Steinn Sigurdsson, Thesis Honors Advisor
Keywords:
quasars photometry catalog
Abstract:
We present a catalog of over 130,000 quasars with NIR photometric properties, with an areal coverage of 1,200 sq. deg. Using this catalog, and concentrating on the ~ 200 sq deg area known as SDSS ``Stripe 82', we measure the observed K-band quasar luminosity function.
Production of the catalog is achieved by matching the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in the optical (ugriz) bands, to the UKIRT Infrared Digital Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Large Area Survey (LAS) in the near infrared (YJHK) bands. We match the ~ 1 million SDSS DR6 Photometric Quasar catalog to Data Release 3 of the UKIDSS LAS, and produce a catalog with 130,827 objects with detections in one or more NIR bands, of which 74,351 objects have optical and
K-band detections and 42,133 objects have the full 9-band photometry. The positional standard deviation of the SDSS Quasar to UKIDSS LAS matches is
delta_RA = 0.1370' and delta_Decl = 0.1314'.
As a ``proof-of-use' for our matched catalog, we present K-band number counts and luminosity functions, using 9,872
objects over an area of 212.5 sq. deg, along the SDSS ``Stripe 82' region on the celestial equator. We find the shape of the K-band QLF is very similar to that of the optical QLF over the considered redshift ranges. Our calculated K-Band QLFs broadly match previous optical QLFs calculated from the SDSS and 2SLAQ QSO surveys and should provide important constraints linking unobscured optical quasars to MIR detected, dusty and obscured AGN at high-redshift.
