Related papers: The Contribution from Scattered Light to Quasar Ga…
We present results of a deep HST/WFPC2 imaging study of 17 quasars at z~0.4, designed to determine the properties of their host galaxies. The sample consists of quasars with absolute magnitudes in the range -24>M_V>-28, allowing us to…
Type II quasars are luminous Active Galactic Nuclei whose centers are obscured by large amounts of gas and dust. In this contribution we present 3-band HST images of nine type II quasars with redshifts 0.25<z<0.4 selected from the Sloan…
We present near-infrared imaging with ESO VLT+ISAAC of the host galaxies of low luminosity quasars in the redshift range 1 < z < 2, aimed at investigating the relationship between the nuclear and host galaxy luminosities at high redshift.…
This review attempts to describe developments in the fields of quasar and quasar host galaxies in the past five. In this time period, the Sloan and 2dF quasar surveys have added several tens of thousands of quasars, with Sloan quasars being…
Brightness variability of QSOs is associated with variations of the spectral energy distribution in the optical-UV range. The observed change of the spectral shape depends on the contribution of the host galaxy. Simulations, taking into…
We present the results of a deep K-band imaging study which reveals the host galaxies around a sample of luminous radio-quiet quasars. The K-band images, obtained at UKIRT, are of sufficient quality to allow accurate modelling of the…
We analyze Hubble Space Telescope observations of scattering regions in 20 luminous obscured quasars at $0.24<z<0.65$ (11 new observations and 9 archival ones) observed at rest-frame $\sim 3000$\AA. We find spectacular $5-10$ kpc-scale…
We present optical spectropolarimetric and imaging polarimetric observations of four high-redshift radio galaxies (HzRGs) obtained with the 10-m Keck I telescope. A broad Mg II emission line is detected in the total and polarized flux…
We present near-infrared imaging of the host galaxies of 17 quasars in the redshift range 1 < z < 2, carried out at the ESO VLT UT1 8m telescope under excellent seeing conditions (~0.4 arcsec). The sample includes radio-loud (RLQ) and…
A sample of 16 quasars selected from the Large Bright Quasar Survey in the redshift range 0.4 < z < 0.5 has been imaged in the R band with the Planetary Camera on the WFPC2 instrument of the Hubble Space Telescope. The host galaxy…
We present Monte Carlo simulations of the Diffuse H$\alpha$ Galactic Background. Our models comprise direct and multiply scattered H$\alpha$ radiation from the kpc scaleheight Warm Ionized Medium and midplane H II regions. The scattering is…
We investigate the luminosity dependence of quasar clustering, inspired by numerical simulations of galaxy mergers that incorporate black hole growth. These simulations have motivated a new interpretation of the quasar luminosity function.…
Only a small fraction of galactic nuclei in the nearby universe are luminous; most of them are currently dim. We investigate the feasibility of constraining the X-ray luminosity in the recent past (up to ~10^6 years ago) of the nucleus of a…
Semi-analytic models of galaxy formation postulate the existence of virialized gaseous halos around galaxies at high redshifts. A small fraction of the light emitted by any high-redshift quasar is therefore expected to scatter off the free…
We describe an algorithm that measures self-consistently the relative galaxy contribution in a sample of radio-quasars from their optical spectra alone. This is based on a spectral fitting method which uses the size of the characteristic…
Strong upper limits are placed on the visual-band brightnesses of galactic hosts for four luminous, radio-quiet quasars with redshifts between $0.16$ and~$0.24$ that were studied with the HST's Wide Field/Planetary Camera-2. Typical upper…
The distribution function of quasars with respect to apparent brightness is given, found under the assumption that quasars are, at least partially, the gravitationally enhanced images of the active nuclei of distant galaxies. A Schechter…
[Abridged] The transmission of light through a planetary atmosphere can be studied as a function of altitude and wavelength using stellar or solar occultations, giving often unique constraints on the atmospheric composition. For exoplanets,…
We have obtained deep, near-IR images of nearly 100 host galaxies of nearby quasars and Seyferts. We find the near-IR light to be a good tracer of luminous mass in these galaxies. For the most luminous quasars there is a correlation between…
We have detected the host galaxies of 16 nearby, radio-quiet quasars using images obtained with the Near-Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS). We confirm that these luminous quasars tend to live in luminous, early-type…