First Measurement of the Clustering Evolution of Photometrically Classified Quasars

By Adam D. Myers, Robert J. Brunner, Gordon Richards, Robert Nichol, D. Schneider, D. V. vanden Berk, R. Scranton, Alexander G. Gray, J. Brinkmann. 2005

165 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present new measurements of the quasar angular autocorrelation function from a sample of ~80,000 photometrically classified quasars taken from the First Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. We find a best-fit model of ω(θ) = (0.066)θ-(0.98±0.15) for the angular correlation function, consistent with estimates of the slope from spectroscopic quasar surveys. We show that only models with little or no evolution in the clustering of quasars in comoving coordinates since a median redshift of z ~ 1.4 can recover a scale length consistent with local galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGNs). A model with little evolution of quasar clustering in comoving coordinates is best explained in the current cosmological paradigm by rapid evolution in quasar bias. We show that quasar biasing must have changed from bQ ~ 3 at a (photometric) redshift of phot = 2.2 to bQ ~ 1.2-1.3 by phot = 0.75. Such a rapid increase with redshift in biasing implies that quasars at z ~ 2 cannot be the progenitors of modern L* objects; rather they must now reside in dense environments, such as clusters. Similarly, the duration of the UVX (ultraviolet-excess) quasar phase must be short enough to explain why local UVX quasars reside in essentially unbiased structures. Our estimates of bQ are in good agreement with recent spectroscopic results (Croom et al. 2005), which demonstrate that the implied evolution in bQ is consistent with quasars inhabiting halos of similar mass at every redshift. Treating quasar clustering as a bivariate function of both redshift and luminosity, we find no evidence for luminosity dependence in quasar clustering, and that redshift evolution thus affects quasar clustering more than changes in quasars' luminosity. Our results are robust against a range of systematic uncertainties. We provide a new method for quantifying stellar contamination in photometrically classified quasar catalogs via the correlation function.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Ecology

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/6b644db81e435f754e15542ea7ff9bf07c8434a8

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Citations in the corpus

CLUSTERING OF LOW-REDSHIFT (z ⩽ 2.2) QUASARS FROM THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY (2008, methodology): “Myers et al. (2006) reported a measurement of the clustering of quasars using ∼ 80 000 SDSS quasars photometrically classified from the catalogue of Richards et al. (2004).”
THINK OUTSIDE THE COLOR BOX: PROBABILISTIC TARGET SELECTION AND THE SDSS-XDQSO QUASAR TARGETING CATALOG (2010, methodology): “…al. (2004) was used to measure the Integrated Sachs-Wolfe (ISW) effect (Giannantonio et al. 2006, 2008) and cosmic magnification bias (Scranton et al. 2005a), and to study the clustering of quasars on large (Myers et al. 2006, 2007a) and small scales (Hennawi et al. 2006; Myers et al. 2007b, 2008).”
Ameliorating systematic uncertainties in the angular clustering of galaxies: a study using the SDSS-III (2011, methodology): “It has been noted several times (e.g., Scranton et al. 2002; Myers et al. 2006; Ross et al. 2006; Ho et al. 2008; Wang & Brunner in prep.) that errors in this correction may cause a systematic effect on the galaxy density field, as the effective depth of a survey would fluctuate.”
The LABOCA survey of the Extended Chandra Deep Field-South: clustering of submillimetre galaxies (2011, methodology): “We next estimate the SMG lifetime, making the simple assumption that every DM halo of similar mass passes through an 1 Myers et al. (2006) and Ross et al. (2009) determine r0 from QSOs assuming a power-law correlation function with γ = 2.”
The DEEP3 Galaxy Redshift Survey: the impact of environment on the size evolution of massive early-type galaxies at intermediate redshift (2011, background): “For example, Croom et al. (2005, see also Grazian et al. 2004; Porciani et al. 2004; Myers et al. 2006) find that quasars at 0.3 < z < 2.2 have a bias 2σ higher than that found by Coil et al. (2007), while Serber et al. (2006) find an excess of ∼L∗ galaxies on 25 kpc to 1 Mpc (h = 0.7) projected…”
The 2dF-SDSS LRG and QSO survey: QSO clustering and the L-z degeneracy (2006, background): “…in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; York et al. 2000) and the 2dF QSO Redshift Survey (2QZ; Croom et al. 2004) data has allowed studies such as those of Porciani, Magliocchetti & Norberg (2004), Myers et al. (2006) and Croom et al. (2005), who measured the redshift dependence of QSO clustering.”
Clustering of intermediate redshift quasars using the final SDSS III-BOSS sample (2015, background): “…populations show a high level of clustering, and it is inferred that they occupy dark matter halos of∼ 1012 h−1M⊙ at most epochs (e.g., Porciani, Magliocchetti & Norberg 2004; Croom et al. 2005; Myers et al. 2006, 2007a; Shen et al. 2007; daÂngela et al. 2008; Ross et al. 2009; White et al. 2012).”
QUASAR CLUSTERING FROM SDSS DR5: DEPENDENCES ON PHYSICAL PROPERTIES (2008, background): “With substantial uncertainties, the estimated host DM halo mass is∼ 1012−13 M⊙ (e.g., Porciani et al. 2004; Croom et al. 2005; Myers et al. 2006, 2007a; Shen et al. 2007a; da Ângela et al. 2008; Padmanabhan et al. 2008), and the estimated quasar lifetime is between a few Myr and 108 yr.”
THE SDSS-III BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY: QUASAR TARGET SELECTION FOR DATA RELEASE NINE (2011, methodology): “Roughly 45% of objects in the KDE catalog of Richards et al. (2009a) in the “mid-z” range (i.e. the redshift range of interest to BOSS) are not stars (Table 4, Richards et al. 2009a), based on an analysis of the classification efficiency using clustering (e.g., Myers et al. 2006).”
Clustering Analyses of 300,000 Photometrically Classified Quasars. I. Luminosity and Redshift Evolution in Quasar Bias (2006, methodology): “…al. 2004; Myers et al. 2006), meaning that large quasar samples can be used to mea- sure angular quasar clustering as a function of physical properties (Myers et al. 2006), and to use angular quasar clustering to probe Dark Matter (Scranton et al. 2005) and Dark Energy (Giannantonio et al. 2006).”
THE SDSS-IV EXTENDED BARYON OSCILLATION SPECTROSCOPIC SURVEY: OVERVIEW AND EARLY DATA (2015, unknown): “We make BAO projections assuming a flat redshift distribution and the bias relationship b(z) = 0.53 + 0.29(1 + z)2 determined by Croom et al. (2005) and consistent with SDSS measurements (Myers et al. 2007, 2006).”
Clustering of High-Redshift (z ≥ 2.9) Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2007, background): “…similar to those of luminous galaxies (Serber et al. 2006, and references therein), although evidencefor an enhanced clustering of quasars on small scales (Djorgovski 1991; Hennawi et al. 2006a; but see also Myers et al. 2006c) suggests that tidal effects within 100 kpc may trigger quasar activity.”
The clustering of intermediate-redshift quasars as measured by the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (2012, background): “…recently included enough objects to study their clustering with some precision (Porciani, Magliocchetti & Norberg 2004; Croom et al. 2005; Porciani & Norberg 2006; Hennawi et al. 2006a; Myers et al. 2006, 2007a,b; da Angela et al. 2008; Padmanabhan et al. 2009; Ross et al. 2009; Shen et al. 2009).”