Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 424, Issue 4, Pages 2876-2895Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1111/j.1365-2966.2012.21427.x
Keywords
surveys; quasars: general; infrared: general
Categories
Funding
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- National Science Foundation
- US Department of Energy
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Japanese Monbukagakusho
- Max Planck Society
- Higher Education Funding Council for England
- American Museum of Natural History
- Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
- University of Basel
- University of Cambridge
- Case Western Reserve University
- University of Chicago
- Drexel University
- Fermilab
- Institute for Advanced Study
- Japan Participation Group
- Johns Hopkins University
- Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Korean Scientist Group
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA)
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA)
- New Mexico State University
- Ohio State University
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Portsmouth
- Princeton University
- United States Naval Observatory
- University of Washington
- STFC [ST/J001538/1] Funding Source: UKRI
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/J001538/1, ST/H00243X/1] Funding Source: researchfish
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The results of a large area, 600?deg2, K-band flux-limited spectroscopic survey for luminous quasars are presented. The survey utilizes the UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS) Large Area Survey (LAS) in regions of sky within the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) footprint. The K-band excess (KX) of all quasars with respect to Galactic stars is exploited in combination with a photometric redshift/classification scheme to identify quasar candidates for spectroscopic follow-up observations. The data contained within this investigation will be able to provide new constraints on the fraction of luminous quasars reddened by dust with E(B - V) = 0.5?mag. The spectroscopic sample is defined using the K-band, 14.0 <= K <= 16.6, and SDSS i-band limits of i = 19.5, 19.7 and 22.0 over sky areas of 287, 150 and 196?deg2, respectively. The survey includes >3200 known quasars from the SDSS and more than 250 additional confirmed quasars from the KX selection. A well-defined subsample of quasars in the redshift interval 1.0 <= z <= 3.5 includes 1152 objects from the SDSS and 172 additional KX-selected quasars. The quasar selection is >95?per cent complete with respect to known SDSS quasars and >95?per cent efficient, largely independent of redshift and i-band magnitude. The properties of the new KX-selected quasars confirm the known redshift-dependent effectiveness of the SDSS quasar selection and provide a sample of luminous quasars experiencing intermediate levels of extinction by dust. The catalogue represents an important step towards the assembly of a well-defined sample of luminous quasars that may be used to investigate the properties of quasars experiencing intermediate levels of dust extinction within their host galaxies or due intervening absorption line systems.
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