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A study of quasar selection in the supervova fields of the Dark Energy Survey

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posted on 2023-06-09, 05:23 authored by Kathy RomerKathy Romer, The Dark Energy Survey
We present a study of quasar selection using the supernova fields of the Dark Energy Survey (DES). We used a quasar catalog from an overlapping portion of the SDSS Stripe 82 region to quantify the completeness and efficiency of selection methods involving color, probabilistic modeling, variability, and combinations of color/ probabilistic modeling with variability. In all cases, we considered only objects that appear as point sources in the DES images. We examine color selection methods based on the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) midIR W1 - W2 color, a mixture of WISE and DES colors (g - i and i W - 1), and a mixture of Vista Hemisphere Survey and DES colors (g - i and i - K ). For probabilistic quasar selection, we used XDQSO, an algorithm that employs an empirical multi-wavelength flux model of quasars to assign quasar probabilities. Our variability selection uses the multi-band ?2 -probability that sources are constant in the DES Year 1 griz-band light curves. The completeness and efficiency are calculated relative to an underlying sample of point sources that are detected in the required selection bands and pass our data quality and photometric error cuts. We conduct our analyses at two magnitude limits, i < 19.8 mag and i < 22 mag. For the subset of sources with W1 and W2 detections, the W1 - W2 color or XDQSOz method combined with variability gives the highest completenesses of >85% for both i-band magnitude limits and efficiencies of >80% to the bright limit and >60% to the faint limit; however, the giW1 and giW1+variability methods give the highest quasar surface densities. The XDQSOz method and combinations of W1W2/giW1/XDQSOz with variability are among the better selection methods when both high completeness and high efficiency are desired. We also present the OzDES Quasar Catalog of 1263 spectroscopically confirmed quasars from three years of OzDES observation in the 30 deg2 of the DES supernova fields. The catalog includes quasars with redshifts up to z ~ 4 and brighter than i = 22 mag, although the catalog is not complete up to this magnitude limit.

Funding

Astronomy Centre Rolling Grant; G0679; STFC-SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY FACILITIES COUNCIL; ST/F002858/1

History

Publication status

  • Published

File Version

  • Published version

Journal

Astronomical Journal

ISSN

0004-6256

Publisher

American Astronomical Society / IOP Publishing

Issue

3

Volume

153

Article number

a107

Department affiliated with

  • Physics and Astronomy Publications

Research groups affiliated with

  • Astronomy Centre Publications

Full text available

  • Yes

Peer reviewed?

  • Yes

Legacy Posted Date

2017-03-06

First Open Access (FOA) Date

2017-03-06

First Compliant Deposit (FCD) Date

2017-03-06

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