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Reverberation mapping (RM) measurements of broad-line region (BLR) lags in z>0.3 quasars are important for directly measuring black hole masses in these distant objects, but so far there have been limited attempts and success given the practical difficulties of RM in this regime. Here we report preliminary results of 15 BLR lag measurements from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project, a dedicated RM program with multi-object spectroscopy designed for RM over a wide redshift range. The lags are based on the 2014 spectroscopic light curves alone (32 epochs over six months) and focus on the Hβ and Mg ii broad lines in the 100 lowest-redshift (z<0.8) quasars included in SDSS-RM; they represent a small subset of the lags that SDSS-RM (including 849 quasars to z∼4.5) is expected to deliver. The reported preliminary lag measurements are for intermediate-luminosity quasars at 0.3≲z<0.8, including nine Hβ lags and six Mg ii lags, for the first time extending RM results to this redshift–luminosity regime and providing direct quasar black hole mass estimates over approximately half of cosmic time. The Mg ii lags also increase the number of known Mg ii lags by several fold and start to explore the utility of Mg ii for RM at high redshift. The location of these new lags at higher redshifts on the observed BLR size–luminosity relationship is statistically consistent with previous Hβ results at z<0.3. However, an independent constraint on the relationship slope at z>0.3 is not yet possible owing to the limitations in our current sample. Our results demonstrate the general feasibility and potential of multi-object RM for z>0.3 quasars.
Extremely metal-poor (XMP) galaxies are defined to have a gas-phase metallicity smaller than a tenth of the solar value (12+log[O/H]<7.69). They are uncommon, chemically and possibly dynamically primitive, with physical conditions characteristic of earlier phases of the universe. We search for new XMPs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in a work that complements Paper I. This time, high electron temperature objects are selected; metals are a main coolant of the gas, so metal-poor objects contain high-temperature gas. Using the algorithm k-means, we classify 788,677 spectra to select 1281 galaxies that have particularly intense [O iii]λ4363 with respect to [O iii]λ5007, which is a proxy for high electron temperature. The metallicity of these candidates was computed using a hybrid technique consistent with the direct method, rendering 196 XMPs. A less restrictive noise constraint provides a larger set with 332 candidates. Both lists are provided in electronic format. The selected XMP sample has a mean stellar mass around 10{sup 8} M{sub ⊙}, with the dust mass ∼10{sup 3}M{sub ⊙} for typical star-forming regions. In agreement with previous findings, XMPs show a tendency to be tadpole-like or cometary. Their underlying stellar continuum corresponds to a fairly young stellar population (<1 Gyr), although young and aged stellar populations coexist at the low-metallicity starbursts. About 10% of the XMPs show large N/O. Based on their location in constrained cosmological numerical simulations, XMPs have a strong tendency to appear in voids and to avoid galaxy clusters. The puzzling 2%-solar low-metallicity threshold exhibited by XMPs remains.
We identify and correct numerous errors within the photometric and spectroscopic footprints (SFs) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey’s (SDSS) 6th data release (DR6). Within the SDSS’s boundaries hundreds of millions of objects have been detected. Yet we present evidence that the boundaries themselves contain a significant number of mistakes that are being revealed for the first time within this paper. Left unaddressed, these can introduce systematic biases into galaxy clustering statistics. Using the DR6 Main Galaxy Sample (MGS) targets as tracers, we reveal inconsistencies between the photometric and SF definitions provided in the Catalog Archive Server (CAS), and the measurements of targets therein. First, we find that 19.7 deg{sup 2} of the DR6 photometric footprint are devoid of MGS targets. In volumes of radii 7 h{sup −1} Mpc, this can cause errors in the expected number of galaxies to exceed 60%. Second, we identify seven areas that were erroneously included or excluded from the SF. Moreover, the tiling algorithm that positioned spectroscopic fibers during and between DRs caused many areas along the edge of the SF to be significantly undersampled relative to the footprint’s interior. Through our corrections, we increase the completeness 2.2% by trimming 3.6% of the area from the existing SF. The sum total of these efforts has generated the most accurate description of the SDSS DR6 footprints ever created.
In this paper, we present a recalibration of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry with new flat fields and zero points derived from Pan-STARRS1. Using point-spread function (PSF) photometry of 60 million stars with 16 < r < 20, we derive a model of amplifier gain and flat-field corrections with per-run rms residuals of 3 millimagnitudes (mmag) in griz bands and 15 mmag in u band. The new photometric zero points are adjusted to leave the median in the Galactic north unchanged for compatibility with previous SDSS work. We also identify transient non-photometric periods in SDSS ("contrails") based on photometric deviations co-temporal in SDSS bands. Finally, the recalibrated stellar PSF photometry of SDSS and PS1 has an rms difference of {9, 7, 7, 8} mmag in griz, respectively, when averaged over 15' regions.
We present results from the largest systematic investigation of broad absorption line (BAL) acceleration to date. We use spectra of 140 quasars from three Sloan Digital Sky Survey programs to search for global velocity offsets in BALs over timescales of ≈2.5–5.5 years in the quasar rest frame. We carefully select acceleration candidates by requiring monolithic velocity shifts over the entire BAL trough, avoiding BALs with velocity shifts that might be caused by profile variability. The C iv BALs of two quasars show velocity shifts consistent with the expected signatures of BAL acceleration, and the BAL of one quasar shows a velocity-shift signature of deceleration. In our two acceleration candidates, we see evidence that the magnitude of the acceleration is not constant over time; the magnitudes of the change in acceleration for both acceleration candidates are difficult to produce with a standard disk-wind model or via geometric projection effects. We measure upper limits to acceleration and deceleration for 76 additional BAL troughs and find that the majority of BALs are stable to within about 3% of their mean velocities. The lack of widespread acceleration/deceleration could indicate that the gas producing most BALs is located at large radii from the central black hole and/or is not currently strongly interacting with ambient material within the host galaxy along our line of sight.
An important question in extragalactic astronomy concerns the distribution of black hole accretion rates of active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Based on observations at X-ray wavelengths, the observed Eddington ratio distribution appears as a power law, while optical studies have often yielded a lognormal distribution. There is increasing evidence that these observed discrepancies may be due to contamination by star formation and other selection effects. Using a sample of galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7, we test whether or not an intrinsic Eddington ratio distribution that takes the form of a Schechter function is consistent with previous work suggesting that young galaxies in optical surveys have an observed lognormal Eddington ratio distribution. We simulate the optical emission line properties of a population of galaxies and AGNs using a broad, instantaneous luminosity distribution described by a Schechter function near the Eddington limit. This simulated AGN population is then compared to observed galaxies via their positions on an emission line excitation diagram and Eddington ratio distributions. We present an improved method for extracting the AGN distribution using BPT diagnostics that allows us to probe over one order of magnitude lower in Eddington ratio, counteracting the effects of dilution by star formation. We conclude that for optically selected AGNs in young galaxies, the intrinsic Eddington ratio distribution is consistent with a possibly universal, broad power law with an exponential cutoff, as this distribution is observed in old, optically selected galaxies and X-rays.
Quasar emission lines are often shifted from the systemic velocity due to various dynamical and radiative processes in the line-emitting region. The level of these velocity shifts depends both on the line species and on quasar properties. We study velocity shifts for the line peaks (not the centroids) of various narrow and broad quasar emission lines relative to systemic using a sample of 849 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. The coadded (from 32 epochs) spectra of individual quasars have sufficient signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) to measure stellar absorption lines to provide reliable systemic velocity estimates, as well as weak narrow emission lines. The large dynamic range in quasar luminosity (∼2 dex) of the sample allowed us to explore potential luminosity dependence of the velocity shifts. We derive average line peak velocity shifts as a function of quasar luminosity for different lines, and quantify their intrinsic scatter. We further quantify how well the peak velocity can be measured as a function of continuum S/N, and demonstrate that there is no systematic bias in the velocity measurements when S/N is degraded to as low as ∼3 per SDSS pixel (∼69 km s{sup −1}). Based on the observed line shifts, we provide empirical guidelines on redshift estimation from [O ii] λ3727, [O iii] λ5007, [Ne v] λ3426, Mg ii, C iii], He ii λ1640, broad Hβ, C iv, and Si iv, which are calibrated to provide unbiased systemic redshifts in the mean, but with increasing intrinsic uncertainties of 46, 56, 119, 205, 233, 242, 400, 415, and 477 km s{sup −1}, in addition to the measurement uncertainties. These results demonstrate the infeasibility of measuring quasar redshifts to better than ∼200 km s{sup −1} with only broad lines.
We investigate the dependence on data quality of quasar properties measured from the C iv emission line region at high redshifts. Our measurements come from 32 epochs of Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project spectroscopic observations of 482 z>1.46 quasars. We compare the differences between measurements made from the single-epoch (SE) and coadded spectra, focusing on the C iv λ1549 emission line because of its importance for studies of high-redshift quasar demographics and physical properties, including black hole masses. In addition to statistical errors increasing (by factors of ∼2–4), we find increasing systematic offsets with decreasing signal-to-noise ratio (S/N). The systematic difference (measurement uncertainty) in our lowest-S/N (<5) subsample between the SE and coadded spectrum (i) C iv equivalent width is 17 Å (31 Å), (ii) centroid wavelength is <1 Å (2 Å), and fractional velocity widths, ΔV/V, characterized by (iii) the line dispersion, σ {sub l}, is 0.104 (0.12), and (iv) the mean absolute deviation (MAD) is 0.072 (0.11). These remain smaller than the 1σ measurement uncertainties for all subsamples considered. The MAD is found to be the most robust line-width characterization. Offsets in the C iv FWHM velocity width and the C iv profile characterized by FWHM/σ {sub l} are only smaller than the statistical uncertainties when S/N > 10, although offsets in lower-S/N spectra exceed the statistical uncertainties by only a factor of ∼1.5 and may depend on the type of functional fit to the line. Characterizing the C iv line profile by the kurtosis is the least robust property investigated, as the median systematic coadded–SE measurement differences are larger than the statistical uncertainties for all S/N subsamples.
A catalog of 8472 white dwarf (WD) candidates is presented, selected using reduced proper motions from the deep proper motion catalog of Munn et al. Candidates are selected in the magnitude range 16<r<21.5 over 980 square degrees, and 16<r<21.3 over an additional 1276 square degrees, within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging footprint. Distances, bolometric luminosities, and atmospheric compositions are derived by fitting SDSS ugriz photometry to pure hydrogen and helium model atmospheres (assuming surface gravities log g=8). The disk white dwarf luminosity function (WDLF) is constructed using a sample of 2839 stars with 5.5<M{sub bol}<17, with statistically significant numbers of stars cooler than the turnover in the luminosity function. The WDLF for the halo is also constructed, using a sample of 135 halo WDs with 5<M{sub bol}<16. We find space densities of disk and halo WDs in the solar neighborhood of 5.5±0.1×10{sup −3} pc{sup −3} and 3.5±0.7×10{sup −5} pc{sup −3}, respectively. We resolve the bump in the disk WDLF due to the onset of fully convective envelopes in WDs, and see indications of it in the halo WDLF as well.
Previous studies have found that ∼1 deg{sup 2} fields surrounding the stellar aggregates in the Taurus star-forming region exhibit a surplus of solar-mass stars relative to denser clusters like IC 348 and the Orion Nebula Cluster. To test whether this difference reflects mass segregation in Taurus or a variation in the initial mass function, we have performed a survey for members of Taurus across a large field (∼40 deg{sup 2}) that was imaged by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We obtained optical and near-infrared spectra of candidate members identified with those images and the Two Micron All Sky Survey, as well as miscellaneous candidates that were selected with several other diagnostics of membership. We have classified 22 of the candidates as new members of Taurus, which includes one of the coolest known members (M9.75). Our updated census of members within the SDSS field shows a surplus of solar-mass stars relative to clusters, although it is less pronounced than in the smaller fields toward the stellar aggregates that were surveyed for previously measured mass functions in Taurus. In addition to spectra of our new members, we include in our study near-IR spectra of roughly half of the known members of Taurus, which are used to refine their spectral types and extinctions. We also present an updated set of near-IR standard spectra for classifying young stars and brown dwarfs at M and L types.
The Apache Point Observatory Galactic Evolution Experiment 2 (APOGEE-2) is a dual-hemisphere, near-infrared (NIR), spectroscopic survey with the goal of producing a chemodynamical mapping of the Milky Way. The targeting for APOGEE-2 is complex and has evolved with time. In this paper, we present the updates and additions to the initial targeting strategy for APOGEE-2N presented in Zasowski et al. (2017). These modifications come in two implementation modes: (i) “Ancillary Science Programs” competitively awarded to Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV PIs through proposal calls in 2015 and 2017 for the pursuit of new scientific avenues outside the main survey, and (ii) an effective 1.5 yr expansion of the survey, known as the Bright Time Extension (BTX), made possible through accrued efficiency gains over the first years of the APOGEE-2N project. For the 23 distinct ancillary programs, we provide descriptions of the scientific aims, target selection, and how to identify these targets within the APOGEE-2 sample. The BTX permitted changes to the main survey strategy, the inclusion of new programs in response to scientific discoveries or to exploit major new data sets not available at the outset of the survey design, and expansions of existing programs to enhance their scientific success and reach. After describing the motivations, implementation, and assessment of these programs, we also leave a summary of lessons learned from nearly a decade of APOGEE-1 and APOGEE-2 survey operations. Finally, a companion paper, F. Santana et al. (submitted; AAS29036), provides a complementary presentation of targeting modifications relevant to APOGEE-2 operations in the Southern Hemisphere.
Abstract We present a new approach to capturing the broad diversity of emission-line and continuum properties in quasar spectra. We identify populations of spectrally similar quasars through pixel-level clustering on 12,968 high signal-to-noise ratio (S/N) spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) in the redshift range of 1.57 < z < 2.4. Our clustering analysis finds 396 quasar spectra that are not assigned to any population, 15 misclassified spectra, and 6 quasars with incorrect redshifts. We compress the quasar populations into a library of 684 high-S/N composite spectra, anchored in redshift space by the Mg ii emission line. Principal component analysis on the library results in an eigenspectrum basis spanning 1067–4007 Å. We model independent samples of SDSS quasar spectra with the eigenbasis, allowing for a free redshift parameter. Our models achieve a median reduced χ 2 on non–broad absorption line quasar spectra that is reduced by 8.5% relative to models using the eigenspectra from the SDSS spectroscopic pipeline. A significant contribution to the relative improvement is from the ability to reconstruct the range of emission-line variation. The redshift estimates from our model are consistent with the Mg ii emission-line redshift with an average offset that displays 51.4% less redshift-dependent variation relative to the SDSS eigenspectra. Our method for developing quasar spectra models can improve automated classification and predict the intrinsic spectrum in regions affected by intervening absorbers such as Ly α , C iv , and Mg ii , thus benefiting studies of large-scale structure.
We use the coadded spectra of 32 epochs of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Reverberation Mapping Project observations of 482 quasars with z > 1.46 to highlight systematic biases in the SDSS- and Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS)-pipeline redshifts due to the natural diversity of quasar properties. We investigate the characteristics of this bias by comparing the BOSS-pipeline redshifts to an estimate from the centroid of He ii λ 1640. He ii has a low equivalent width but is often well-defined in high-S/N spectra, does not suffer from self-absorption, and has a narrow component which, when present (the case for about half of our sources), produces a redshift estimate that, on average, is consistent with that determined from [O ii] to within the He ii and [O ii] centroid measurement uncertainties. The large redshift differences of ∼1000 km s{sup −1}, on average, between the BOSS-pipeline and He ii-centroid redshifts, suggest there are significant biases in a portion of BOSS quasar redshift measurements. Adopting the He ii-based redshifts shows that C iv does not exhibit a ubiquitous blueshift for all quasars, given the precision probed by our measurements. Instead, we find a distribution of C iv-centroid blueshifts across our sample, with a dynamic range that (i) is wider than that previously reported for this line, and (ii) spans C iv centroids from those consistent with the systemic redshift to those with significant blueshifts of thousands of kilometers per second. These results have significant implications for measurement and use of high-redshift quasar properties and redshifts, and studies based thereon.
We present a detailed search and analysis of chemically stratified hybrid (traces of helium and hydrogen) white dwarfs in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Only one stratified white dwarf, PG 1305–017, was known prior to this analysis. The main objective is to confirm the existence of several new stratified objects. We first describe our new generation of stratified model atmospheres, where a thin hydrogen layer floats in diffusive equilibrium on top of a more massive helium layer. We then present the results of our search for hot (T{sub eff} > 30,000 K) white dwarfs with a hybrid spectral type among the ∼38,000 white dwarf spectra listed in the SDSS. A total of 51 spectra were retained in our final sample, which we analyze using spectroscopic fits to both chemically homogeneous and stratified model atmospheres. We identify 14 new stratified white dwarfs in the SDSS sample. From these results, we draw several conclusions regarding the physical processes that might explain the presence of helium in the atmospheres of all the stars in our sample.
The Ca ii K spectroheliograms spanning over a century (1907–2007) from Kodaikanal Solar Observatory, India, have recently been digitized and calibrated. Applying a fully automated algorithm (which includes contrast enhancement and the “Watershed method”) to these data, we have identified the supergranules and calculated the associated parameters, such as scale, circularity, and fractal dimension. We have segregated the quiet and active regions and obtained the supergranule parameters separately for these two domains. In this way, we have isolated the effect of large-scale and small-scale magnetic fields on these structures and find a significantly different behavior of the supergranule parameters over solar cycles. These differences indicate intrinsic changes in the physical mechanism behind the generation and evolution of supergranules in the presence of small-scale and large-scale magnetic fields. This also highlights the need for further studies using solar dynamo theory along with magneto-convection models.
Galaxy-scale bars are expected to provide an effective means for driving material toward the central region in spiral galaxies, and possibly feeding supermassive black holes (BHs). Here we present a statistically complete study of the effect of bars on average BH accretion. From a well-selected sample of 50,794 spiral galaxies (with M{sub ∗}∼0.2--30×10{sup 10} M{sub ⊙}) extracted from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Galaxy Zoo 2 project, we separate those sources considered to contain galaxy-scale bars from those that do not. Using archival data taken by the Chandra X-ray Observatory, we identify X-ray luminous (L{sub X}≳10{sup 41} erg s{sup −1}) active galactic nuclei and perform an X-ray stacking analysis on the remaining X-ray undetected sources. Through X-ray stacking, we derive a time-averaged look at accretion for galaxies at fixed stellar mass and star-formation rate, finding that the average nuclear accretion rates of galaxies with bar structures are fully consistent with those lacking bars ( M-dot {sub acc}≈3×10{sup −5} M{sub ⊙} yr{sup −1}). Hence, we robustly conclude that large-scale bars have little or no effect on the average growth of BHs in nearby (z<0.15) galaxies over gigayear timescales.
We present composite broad-line region (BLR) reverberation mapping lag measurements for H α , H β , He ii λ 4686, and Mg ii for a sample of 144, z ≲ 1 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. Using only the 32-epoch spectroscopic light curves in the first six-month season of SDSS-RM observations, we compile correlation function measurements for individual objects and then coadd them to allow the measurement of the average lags for our sample at mean redshifts of 0.4 (for H α ) and ∼0.65 (for the other lines). At similar quasar luminosities and redshifts, the sample-averaged lag decreases in the order of Mg ii, H α , H β , and He ii. This decrease in lags is accompanied by an increase in the mean line width of the four lines, and is roughly consistent with the virialized motion for BLR gas in photoionization equilibrium. These are among the first RM measurements of stratified BLR structure at z > 0.3. Dividing our sample by luminosity, H α shows clear evidence of increasing lags with luminosity, consistent with the expectation from the measured BLR size–luminosity relation based on H β . The other three lines do not show a clear luminosity trend in their average lags due to the limited dynamic range of luminosity probed and the poor average correlation signals in the divided samples, a situation that will be improved with the incorporation of additional photometric and spectroscopic data from SDSS-RM. We discuss the utility and caveats of composite lag measurements for large statistical quasar samples with reverberation mapping data.