The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project: Sample Characterization
Abstract
We present a detailed characterization of the 849 broad-line quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. Our quasar sample covers a redshift range of 0.1 < z < 4.5 and is flux-limited to i PSF < 21.7 without any other cuts on quasar properties. The main sample characterization includes: (1) spectral measurements of the continuum and broad emission lines for individual objects from the coadded first-season spectroscopy in 2014, (2) identification of broad and narrow absorption lines in the spectra, and (3) optical variability properties for continuum and broad lines from multi-epoch spectroscopy. We provide improved systemic redshift estimates for all quasars and demonstrate the effects of the signal-to-noise ratio on the spectral measurements. We compile measured properties for all 849 quasars along with supplemental multi-wavelength data for subsets of our sample from other surveys. The SDSS-RM sample probes a diverse range in quasar properties and shows well-detected continuum and broad-line variability for many objects from first-season monitoring data. The compiled properties serve as the benchmark for follow-up work based on SDSS-RM data. The spectral fitting tools are made public along with this work.
- Publication:
-
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
- Pub Date:
- April 2019
- DOI:
- 10.3847/1538-4365/ab074f
- arXiv:
- arXiv:1810.01447
- Bibcode:
- 2019ApJS..241...34S
- Keywords:
-
- black hole physics;
- galaxies: active;
- line: profiles;
- quasars: general;
- surveys;
- Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies;
- Astrophysics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
- E-Print:
- Updated to match the accepted version (minor corrections). Catalog data and software tools are available at ftp://quasar.astro.illinois.edu/public/sdssrm/paper_data/Sample_char/