The SDSS Quasar Survey

AST0307582Schneider斯隆数字巡天（SDSS）类星体巡天计划完成后，将覆盖天球的四分之一，并将包含大约100，000个红移5.5以下的类星体，具有一致和准确的位置，光度学，图像形态和光谱。 这项研究将产生主要的类星体目录，宽吸收线（BAL）类星体目录，以及新的高红移类星体的年度列表，作为对其他研究人员的服务。 面积覆盖、灵敏度、光度精度、宽波长覆盖和射电选择的结合使其成为一个独特的强大类星体数据集，其生产具有培训未来研究人员的额外好处。 虽然星表可以而且将会被用于许多研究，但该项目将把科学努力集中在理解类星体光度函数及其演化上，并承诺在未来许多年内产生确定的光度函数。 该研究还可以验证高质量SDSS数据的光度红移的有效性，使样本能够扩展到大约100万个类星体。 这个建议所支持的质量控制使得数据库比“原始”目录更有用，后者的条件质量标志可能很难理解。

AST-0307582SchneiderThe Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Survey, when completed, will cover a quarter of the celestial sphere and will contain approximately 100,000 quasars below redshift 5.5, with consistent and accurate positions, photometry, image morphology, and spectra. This research will produce the main quasar catalog, a broad absorption line (BAL) quasar catalog, and an annual list of new high-redshift quasars, as a service to other researchers. The combination of area coverage, sensitivity, photometric accuracy, broad wavelength coverage, and radio selection make this a uniquely powerful quasar dataset, and its production has the added benefit of training future researchers. Although the catalogs can, and will, be used for many studies, this project will focus its scientific efforts on understanding the quasar luminosity function and its evolution, and promises to produce the definitive luminosity function for many years to come. The research may also be able to verify the validity of photometric redshifts from the high quality SDSS data, enabling the sample to be extended to around a million quasars. The quality control supported by this proposal makes the database of far more use than the "raw" catalog, whose conditional quality flags can be hard to understand.***