Composite Spectra from the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey

By M. Brotherton, H. Tran, Robert H. Becker, M. Gregg, S. Laurent-Muehleisen, R. White. 2000

169 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We present a very high signal-to-noise ratio composite spectrum created using 657 radio-selected quasars from the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey. The spectrum spans rest-frame wavelengths 900-7500 Å. Additionally, we present composite spectra formed from subsets of the total data set in order to investigate the spectral dependence on radio loudness and the presence of broad absorption lines. In particular, radio-loud quasars are red compared to radio-quiet quasars, and quasars showing low-ionization broad absorption lines are red compared to other quasars. We compare our composites with those from the Large Bright Quasar Survey. Composite quasar spectra have proved to be valuable tools for a host of applications, and in that spirit we make these publicly available via the FIRST survey web page.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/dd30899a2f4ffa1cd253f5b5411273bffb62746c

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THE z = 5 QUASAR LUMINOSITY FUNCTION FROM SDSS STRIPE 82 (2012, background): “…from quasars with unusually weak emission lines, which account for ∼ 6% of quasars at z > 4.2 (Diamond-Stanic et al. 2009), or from Broad Absorption Line (BAL) quasars, which tend to have moderately redder colors (e.g., Weymann et al. 1991; Brotherton et al. 2001; Reichard et al. 2003).”
The Rest-Frame Extreme-Ultraviolet Spectral Properties of Quasi-stellar Objects (2001, methodology): “…hundreds to thousands of optical spectra have been created out of spectral data acquired for various surveys, including composites from the Large Bright Quasar Survey (Francis et al. 1991), the FIRST survey (Brotherton et al. 2001), and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS; Vanden Berk et al. 2001).”
What controls the C iv line profile in active galactic nuclei (2004, background): “An association between UV absorption and reddening was established by Sprayberry & Foltz (1992) for low ionization broad absorption line quasars (BALQs), and was later shown by Brotherton et al. (2001) to extend with a smaller amplitude to all BALQs.”
Composite Quasar Spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2001, methodology): “The Large Bright Quasar Survey (LBQS) composite (kindly provided by S. Morris) updated from Francis et al. (1991), the First Bright Quasar Survey (FBQS) composite (available electronically ; Brotherton et al. 2001), and our median composite are shown for comparison in Figure 11.”
Red and Reddened Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2003, background): “The color distribution of quasars (Webster et al. 1995; Francis, Whiting, & Webster 2000; Brotherton et al. 2001; Richards et al. 2001) and the discovery of a few examples of highly reddened radio-selected quasars (Gregg et al. 2002; White et al. 2003) strongly suggest that a sizeable population of…”
Average Quasar Spectra in the Context of Eigenvector 1 (2002, background): “…or composite spectra derived from large survey databases involving hundreds of AGN (LBQS: Francis et al. 1991; HST: Zheng et al. 1997; 1998; FIRST: Brotherton et al. 2001; Sloan survey: Vanden Berk et al. 2001) make it possible to generate a “typical” quasar spectrum from blueward of Lyα to Hα.”
Unusual Broad Absorption Line Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (2002, methodology): “A range of E(B − V ) (e.g., Hines & Wills 1995) or a wavelength-dependent contribution from scattered light (Brotherton et al. 2001a) will complicate the interpretation of our derived single E(B − V ).”
THE QUASAR OUTFLOW CONTRIBUTION TO AGN FEEDBACK: VLT MEASUREMENTS OF SDSS J0318-0600 (2009, unknown): “Here we show the unattenuated UV-soft SED described in the previous section and the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey composite spectrum of Brotherton et al. (2001).”
THE ULTRAVIOLET-BRIGHT, SLOWLY DECLINING TRANSIENT PS1-11af AS A PARTIAL TIDAL DISRUPTION EVENT (2013, methodology): “The typical shapes of the absorption troughs in BALQSOs (e.g., Voit et al. 1993; Hall et al. 2002) are generally quite different from the single broad absorption with a smooth profile for each line in PS111af.”
SWIRE: The SIRTF Wide‐Area Infrared Extragalactic Survey (2001, methodology): “Templates for quasars were derived by combining composite optical spectra from the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey11 (Brotherton et al. 2001) and the observed spectrum of a red quasar (Gregg et al. 2002) with ISO PHT-S and PHT-L NIR SEDs and photometric data in the IR of quasars with optical SEDs well-fi”
Dust Reddening in Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasars (2004, background): “The discovery of a very red population of radio-selected quasars and studies of the color distribution of quasars (Webster et al. 1995; Brotherton et al. 2001; Francis et al. 2001; Richards et al. 2001; Gregg et al. 2002; White et al. 2003) suggest that a significant population of red quasars…”
An Observational Determination of the Bolometric Quasar Luminosity Function (2006, background): “…of obscured (e.g., Risaliti et al. 1999; Ueda et al. 2003; Treister et al. 2004) or heavily reddened (e.g.,Webster et al. 1995; Richards et al. 2001; Brotherton et al. 2001; Gregg et al. 2002; Hopkins et al. 2004) quasars and generally cover a relatively small baseline ( 1Y2 dex) in luminosity.”
Continuum and Emission-Line Strength Relations for a Large Active Galactic Nuclei Sample (2002, result): “This spectral index is consistent with the slope reported for other composite spectra (Brotherton et al. 2001; Vanden Berk et al. 2001; Telfer et al. 2002).”
A Unified, Merger-driven Model of the Origin of Starbursts, Quasars, the Cosmic X-Ray Background, Supermassive Black Holes, and Galaxy Spheroids (2005, background): “Throughout much of the duration of bright quasar activity, column densities rise to high levels as a result of the same process that feeds accretion, naturally producing the well-known reddened population of quasars (e.g. Webster et al. 1995; Brotherton et al. 2001; Francis etal.”
A Direct Precision Measurement of the Intergalactic Lyα Opacity at 2 ≤ z ≤ 4.2 (2007, methodology): “As real quasar spectra are not featureless, but display a number of weak emission lines in Lyα forest, we multiply our normalized transmission fields by a composite quasar spectrum made from a sample of 657 quasars from the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey (Brotherton et al. 2001).”
Continuum and Emission-Line Properties of Broad Absorption Line Quasars (2003, methodology): “These numbers can be compared with Sprayberry & Foltz (1992) and Brotherton et al. (2001), who each applied an SMC reddening law and found that ELo EHi 0.1 was needed to account for flux deficits in LoBALs as compared with HiBALs.”
A CATALOG OF BROAD ABSORPTION LINE QUASARS IN SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY DATA RELEASE 5 (2008, background): “Previous studies have found that BAL QSOs are redder than non-BAL QSOs, with LoBALs even redder than HiBALs (e.g., Weymann et al. 1991; Brotherton et al. 2001; Reichard et al. 2003; Trump et al. 2006).”
Black Holes in Galaxy Mergers: Evolution of Quasars (2005, background): “The existence of this extended reddened quasar population in radio and optically selected quasars is well known (e.g. Webster et al. 1995; Brotherton et al. 2001; Francis et al. 2001; Richards et al. 2001; Gregg et al. 2002; White et al. 2003), and we are able to reproduce its distribution not as a…”
Evidence for Quasar Activity Triggered by Galaxy Mergers in HST Observations of Dust-reddened Quasars (2007, methodology): “For that we use the FBQS composite spectrum (Brotherton et al. 2001) with a SMC dust-reddening law from Fitzpatrick (1999) using the relation Fo(k) ¼ Fc(k) ; 10E (B V )k(k); ð1Þ with Fc(k) the composite (FBQS) and Fo(k) the observed spectrum.”