An official website of the United States government
Abstract We present the first active galactic nuclei (AGN) catalog of the Hobby–Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment Survey (HETDEX) observed between 2017 January and 2020 June. HETDEX is an ongoing spectroscopic survey (3500–5500 Å) with no target preselection based on magnitudes, colors or morphologies, enabling us to select AGN based solely on their spectral features. Both luminous quasars and low-luminosity Seyferts are found in our catalog. AGN candidates are selected with at least two significant AGN emission lines, such as the Lyαand Civλ1549 line pair, or with a single broad emission line with FWHM > 1000 km s−1. Each source is further confirmed by visual inspections. This catalog contains 5322 AGN, covering an effective sky coverage of 30.61 deg2. A total of 3733 of these AGN have secure redshifts, and we provide redshift estimates for the remaining 1589 single broad-line AGN with no crossmatched spectral redshifts from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 14 of QSOs. The redshift range of the AGN catalog is 0.25 <z< 4.32, with a median ofz= 2.1. The bolometric luminosity range is 109–1014L☉with a median of 1012L☉. The medianr-band magnitude of our AGN catalog is 21.6 mag, with 34% havingr> 22.5, and 2.6% reaching the detection limit atr∼ 26 mag of the deepest imaging surveys we searched. We also provide a composite spectrum of the AGN sample covering 700–4400 Å.
more »
« less
This content will become publicly available on February 10, 2026
A Study on the Line of Sight to Galaxies Detected at Gamma-Ray Energies
Abstract The large-scale universal structure comprises strands of dark matter and galaxies with large underdense volumes known as voids. We measure the fraction of the line of sight that intersects voids for active galactic nuclei (AGN) detected by Fermi Large Area Telescope (LAT) and quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). This “voidiness” fraction is a rudimentary proxy for the density along the line of sight to the galaxies. The voidiness of SDSS-observed quasars (QSOs) is distinctly different from randomly distributed source populations, with a medianp-value of 4.6 × 10−5and ≪1 × 10−7, when compared with 500 simulated populations with randomly simulated locations but matching redshifts in the 0.1 ≤z< 0.4 and 0.4 ≤z< 0.7 intervals, respectively. A similar comparison of the voidiness for LAT-detected AGN shows medianp-values greater than 0.05 in each redshift interval. When comparing the SDSS QSO population to the LAT-detected AGN, we mitigate potential bias from a relationship between redshift and voidiness by comparing the LAT-detected AGN to a “redshift-matched” set of SDSS QSOs. The LAT-detected AGN between a redshift of 0.4 and 0.7 show higher voidiness compared to the redshift-matched SDSS QSO populations, with a medianp-value of 2.3 × 10−5(a 4.1σdeviation). No deviation is found when comparing the same populations between redshifts of 0.1 and 0.4 (p> 0.05). We do not study possible causes of this voidiness difference. It might relate to propagation effects from lower magnetic or radiative background fields within voids or to an environment more favorable for gamma-ray production for AGN near voids.
more »
« less
- PAR ID:
- 10618304
- Publisher / Repository:
- IOP Publishing
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal Letters
- Volume:
- 980
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 2041-8205
- Page Range / eLocation ID:
- L15
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
More Like this
-
-
Abstract We present a sample of 305 QSO candidates having ∣b∣ < 30°, the majority with GALEX magnitudes near-UV < 18.75. To generate this sample, we apply UV–IR color selection criteria to photometric data from the Ultraviolet Galactic Plane Survey as part of GALEX-CAUSE, the Million Quasars Catalog, Gaia DR2, and Pan-STARRS DR1. 165 of these 305 candidate UV-bright active galactic nuclei (AGN; 54%) have published spectroscopic redshifts from 45 different surveys, confirming them as AGN. We further obtained low-dispersion, optical, long-slit spectra with the Apache Point Observatory 3.5 m, MDM 2.4 m, and MDM 1.3 m telescopes for 84 of the candidates, and confirm 86% (N= 72) as AGN, generally withz< 0.6. Of these 72 confirmed AGN, 25 are newly discovered low-latitude QSOs without any previous spectroscopy. These sources fill a gap in the Galactic latitude coverage of the available samples of known UV-bright QSO background probes. Along with a description of the confirmed QSO properties, we provide the fully reduced, flux- and wavelength-calibrated spectra of 72 low-latitude QSOs through the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes. Future Hubble Space Telescope/Cosmic Origins Spectrograph spectroscopy of these low-Galactic-latitude QSOs has the potential to transform our view of the Milky Way and Local Group circumgalactic medium.more » « less
-
e present a sample of 305 QSO candidates having |b| < 30◦, the majority with GALEX magnitudes NUV < 18.75. To generate this sample, we apply UV-IR color selection criteria to photometric data from the Ultraviolet GAlactic Plane Survey (UVGAPS) as part of GALEX-CAUSE, the Million Quasars Catalog, Gaia DR2, and Pan-STARRS DR1. 165 of these 305 candidate UV-bright AGN (54%) have published spectroscopic redshifts from 45 different surveys, confirming them as AGN. We further obtained low-dispersion, optical, longslit spectra with the APO 3.5-m, MDM 2.4-m, and MDM 1.3-m telescopes for 84 of the candidates, and confirm 86% (N = 72) as AGN, generally with z < 0.6. These sources fill a gap in the Galactic latitude coverage of the available samples of known UV-bright QSO background probes. Along with a description of the confirmed QSO properties, we provide the fully-reduced, flux and wavelength-calibrated spectra of 84 low-latitude QSOs through the Mikulski Archive for Space Telescopes. Future HST/COS spectroscopy of these low-Galactic-latitude QSOs has the potential to transform our view of the Milky Way and Local Group circumgalactic medium.more » « less
-
Abstract We present a highly complete sample of broad-line (Type 1) QSOs out to z ∼ 3 selected by their mid-infrared colors, a method that is minimally affected by dust reddening. We remove host-galaxy emission from the spectra and fit for excess reddening in the residual QSOs, resulting in a Gaussian distribution of colors for unreddened (blue) QSOs, with a tail extending toward heavily reddened (red) QSOs, defined as having E ( B − V ) > 0.25. This radio-independent selection method enables us to compare red and blue QSO radio properties in both the FIRST (1.4 GHz) and VLASS (2–4 GHz) surveys. Consistent with recent results from optically selected QSOs from SDSS, we find that red QSOs have a significantly higher detection fraction and a higher fraction of compact radio morphologies at both frequencies. We employ radio stacking to investigate the median radio properties of the QSOs including those that are undetected in FIRST and VLASS, finding that red QSOs have significantly brighter radio emission and steeper radio spectral slopes compared with blue QSOs. Finally, we find that the incidence of red QSOs is strongly luminosity dependent, where red QSOs make up >40% of all QSOs at the highest luminosities. Overall, red QSOs comprise ∼40% of higher luminosity QSOs, dropping to only a few percent at lower luminosities. Furthermore, red QSOs make up a larger percentage of the radio-detected QSO population. We argue that dusty AGN-driven winds are responsible for both the obscuration as well as excess radio emission seen in red QSOs.more » « less
-
Abstract “Changing-look” active galactic nuclei (CL-AGNs) challenge our basic ideas about the physics of accretion flows and circumnuclear gas around supermassive black holes. Using first-year Sloan Digital Sky Survey V (SDSS-V) repeated spectroscopy of nearly 29,000 previously known active galactic nuclei (AGNs), combined with dedicated follow-up spectroscopy, and publicly available optical light curves, we have identified 116 CL-AGNs where (at least) one broad emission line has essentially (dis-)appeared, as well as 88 other extremely variable systems. Our CL-AGN sample, with 107 newly identified cases, is the largest reported to date, and includes ∼0.4% of the AGNs reobserved in first-year SDSS-V operations. Among our CL-AGNs, 67% exhibit dimming while 33% exhibit brightening. Our sample probes extreme AGN spectral variability on months to decades timescales, including some cases of recurring transitions on surprisingly short timescales (≲2 months in the rest frame). We find that CL events are preferentially found in lower-Eddington-ratio (fEdd) systems: Our CL-AGNs have afEdddistribution that significantly differs from that of a carefully constructed, redshift- and luminosity-matched control sample (Anderson–Darling test yieldingpAD≈ 6 × 10−5; medianfEdd≈ 0.025 versus 0.043). This preference for lowfEddstrengthens previous findings of higher CL-AGN incidence at lowerfEdd, found in smaller samples. Finally, we show that the broad Mgiiemission line in our CL-AGN sample tends to vary significantly less than the broad Hβemission line. Our large CL-AGN sample demonstrates the advantages and challenges in using multi-epoch spectroscopy from large surveys to study extreme AGN variability and physics.more » « less
