A high-angular resolution study of the nuclear regions of quasar host galaxies with the NaCo simultaneous differential imager
Abstract
A project aiming at the study of the emission line gas morphology in quasar host galaxies by means of adaptive-optics-assisted simultaneous narrow-band imaging of the line and continuum emission is presented. The project makes use of the NaCo Simultaneous Differential Imager (SDI) in an extragalactic experiment. The quasar targets are selected according to the availability of a neighbouring natural guide star for adaptive optics (AO) correction and according to a redshift criterion which places one of the emission lines of Paβ, Hα, or [O III] into one of the three SDI narrow-band filters in the near-infrared H-band. The first results for six targets from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Catalogue at redshifts of about 0.2, 1.4, and 2.1 are summarized. The strongest line emission is detected for the Hα candidate SDSS J125400.42+033726.5 at a redshift of 1.386. A double-structured continuum source is found in the central region of SDSS J114203.40+005135.8, which might be correlated with the major merger process suggested by the one-armed tidal tail in the large scale morphology.
- Publication:
-
Journal of Physics Conference Series
- Pub Date:
- October 2008
- DOI:
- 10.1088/1742-6596/131/1/012034
- Bibcode:
- 2008JPhCS.131a2034S