The fraction and mid-infrared properties of broad absorption line quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey |
| |
| Authors: | Xingting Pu |
| |
| Institution: | 1. College of Science, Nanjing Forestry University, Nanjing, Jiangsu, 210037, China
|
| |
| Abstract: | We present the results of a study which uses a sample of 1822 Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasars with reliable Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) detections in the redshift range 1.7≤z≤4.38 to investigate the mid-infrared fraction of broad absorption line (BAL) quasars. The BAL quasars in the sample include both high-ionization BAL (HiBAL) quasars that show broad absorption from C?iv and low-ionization BAL (LoBAL) quasars that show additional broad absorption from Mg?ii. The fraction of C?iv BAL quasars with nonzero absorption index (AI) is found to be 38.7±1.2 %, in good agreement with that derived for the Two Micron All Sky Survey (2MASS) sample. The C?iv BAL quasar fractions remain constant with magnitude in the WISE 3.4 μm (W1) and 4.6 μm (W2) bands, and increase rapidly with decreasing magnitude in the WISE 12 μm (W3) and 22 μm (W4) bands. The nonzero AI fraction of 44.5±2.1 % determined in the WISE W4 band is more likely to represent the intrinsic BAL quasar fraction. No evidence that the fraction is a strong function of redshift is found. At 1.7≤z≤2.15, the overall mid-infrared LoBAL fraction is $3.3^{+0.6}_{-0.5}~\%$ and the fractions increase significantly with decreasing magnitude in all four of WISE bands. Moreover, it is found that the mean optical-to-WISE colors of BAL quasars are ?0.2 mag redder than that of non-BAL quasars, while the traditional (nonzero balnicity) BAL quasars are redder than the nontraditional BAL quasars by ?0.15 mag, which suggest a continuum of more reddening from non-BAL to nontraditional BAL to traditional BAL. No evidence that nontraditional BALs are a distinct class from traditional BALs is found. Finally, it is shown that the mean optical-to-WISE colors of LoBALs are ?0.4 mag redder than that of HiBALs at 1.7≤z≤2.15. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
| 本文献已被 SpringerLink 等数据库收录！ |
|
