Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 464, Issue 3, Pages 3431-3463Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stw2387
Keywords
galaxies; active quasars: absorption lines; quasars: emission lines; quasars: general
Categories
Funding
- USA National Science Foundation [AST-1009628]
- NSF Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship awarded under NSF grant [AST-1302093]
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science
- University of Arizona
- Brazilian Participation Group
- Brookhaven National Laboratory
- University of Cambridge
- Carnegie Mellon University
- University of Florida
- French Participation Group
- German Participation Group
- Harvard University
- Instituto de Astrofisica de Canarias
- Michigan State/Notre Dame/JINA Participation Group
- Johns Hopkins University
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
- Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics
- Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics
- New Mexico State University
- New York University
- Ohio State University
- Pennsylvania State University
- University of Portsmouth
- Princeton University
- Spanish Participation Group
- University of Tokyo
- University of Utah
- Vanderbilt University
- University of Virginia
- University of Washington
- Yale University
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences [1302093, 1516784] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
- STFC [ST/L00481X/1] Funding Source: UKRI
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Red quasars are candidate young objects in an early transition stage of massive galaxy evolution. Our team recently discovered a population of extremely red quasars (ERQs) in the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) that has a suite of peculiar emission-line properties including large rest equivalent widths (REWs), unusual 'wingless' line profiles, large N-V/L-y alpha, N-V/C (IV), Si (IV)/C (IV) and other flux ratios, and very broad and blueshifted [O (III)]lambda 5007. Here we present a new catalogue of C-IV and N-V emission-line data for 216 188 BOSS quasars to characterize the ERQ line properties further. We show that they depend sharply on UV-to-mid-IR colour, secondarily on REW(C (IV)), and not at all on luminosity or the Baldwin Effect. We identify a 'core' sample of 97 ERQs with nearly uniform peculiar properties selected via i-W3 >= 4.6 (AB) and REW(C (IV)) >= 100 angstrom at redshifts 2.0-3.4. A broader search finds 235 more red quasars with similar unusual characteristics. The core ERQs have median luminosity log L(ergs s(-1)) similar to 47.1, sky density 0.010 deg(-2), surprisingly flat/blue UV spectra given their red UV-to-mid-IR colours, and common outflow signatures including BALs or BAL-like features and large C (IV) emission-line blueshifts. Their SEDs and line properties are inconsistent with normal quasars behind a dust reddening screen. We argue that the core ERQs are a unique obscured quasar population with extreme physical conditions related to powerful outflows across the line-forming regions. Patchy obscuration by small dusty clouds could produce the observed UV extinctions without substantial UV reddening.
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