Quasar composite made from bright QSOs

DOI

Quasi-stellar object (QSO) spectral templates are important both to QSO physics and for investigations that use QSOs as probes of intervening gas and dust. However, combinations of various QSO samples obtained at different times and with different instruments so as to expand a composite and to cover a wider rest frame wavelength region may create systematic effects, and the contribution from QSO hosts may contaminate the composite. We have constructed a composite spectrum from luminous blue QSOs at 1<z<2.1 selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The observations with X-shooter simultaneously cover ultraviolet (UV) to near-infrared (NIR) light, which ensures that the composite spectrum covers the full rest-frame range from Ly{beta} to 11350{AA} without any significant host contamination. Assuming a power-law continuum for the composite we find a spectral slope of {alpha}{lambda}=1.70+/-0.01, which is steeper than previously found in the literature. We attribute the differences to our broader spectral wavelength coverage, which allows us to effectively avoid fitting any regions that are affected either by strong QSO emissions lines (e.g., Balmer lines and complex [FeII] blends) or by intrinsic host galaxy emission. Finally, we demonstrate the application of the QSO composite spectrum for evaluating the reddening in other QSOs.

Identifier
DOI http://doi.org/10.26093/cds/vizier.35850087
Source https://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/lp/custom/CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/585/A87
Related Identifier https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/A+A/585/A87
Related Identifier http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/A+A/585/A87
Metadata Access http://dc.g-vo.org/rr/q/pmh/pubreg.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=oai_b2find&identifier=ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/585/A87
Provenance
Creator Selsing J.; Fynbo J. P. U; Christensen L.; Krogager J.-K.
Publisher CDS
Publication Year 2015
Rights https://cds.unistra.fr/vizier-org/licences_vizier.html
OpenAccess true
Contact CDS support team <cds-question(at)unistra.fr>
Representation
Resource Type Dataset; AstroObjects
Discipline Astrophysics and Astronomy; Galactic and extragalactic Astronomy; High Energy Astrophysics; Natural Sciences; Observational Astronomy; Physics; Stellar Astronomy