Related papers: The WISSH Quasars Project IV. BLR versus kpc-scale…
Comparison of six high-redshift quasar spectra obtained with the Large Binocular Telescope with previous observations from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey shows that failure to correctly identify absorption and other problems with accurate…
We use the SDSS, along with the NVSS and the WENSS to define a sample of 746 radio-loud quasars and measure their 330MHz to 1.4GHz spectral indexes. Following previous authors we take the spectral index as an indicator of the orientation…
We present a detailed analysis of the X-ray emission of HS 1700+6416, a high redshift (z=2.7348), luminous quasar, classified as a Narrow Absorption Line (NAL) quasar on the basis of its SDSS spectrum. The source has been observed 9 times…
We identify a sample of 74 high-redshift quasars (z>3) with weak emission lines from the Fifth Data Release of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and present infrared, optical, and radio observations of a subsample of four objects at z>4. These…
In the standard picture of structure formation, the first massive galaxies are expected to form at the highest peaks of the density field, which constitute the cores of massive proto-clusters. Luminous quasars (QSOs) at z~4 are the most…
Studying the coupling between the energy output produced by the central quasar and the host galaxy is fundamental to fully understand galaxy evolution. Quasar feedback is indeed supposed to dramatically affect the galaxy properties by…
We probe the radial clumping stratification of OB stars in the intermediate and outer wind regions (r>~2 R*) to derive upper limits for mass-loss rates, and compare to current mass-loss implementation. Together with archival…
We present high-resolution imaging and low-resolution spectroscopy of the BL Lac object PKS 0537-441 (z = 0.893) and its environment. The observations were designed to clarify, whether the properties of PKS 0537-441 are affected by…
[Abridged] We present new VLT ISAAC spectra for 30 quasars, which we combine with previous data to yield a sample of 53 intermediate redshift (z ~ 0.9 - 3.0) sources. The sample is used to explore properties of prominent lines in the Hbeta…
We present the X-ray analysis of the largest flux-limited complete sample of blazar candidates at z>4 selected from the Cosmic Lens All Sky Survey (CLASS). After obtaining a nearly complete (24/25) X-ray coverage of the sample (from…
We present simultaneous optical and X-ray data from Swift for a sample of FSRQs selected from the EMSS survey. We present also a complete analysis of Swift and INTEGRAL data on 4 blazars recently discussed as possibly challenging the trends…
Accounting for ~20% of the total QSO population, Broad Absorption Line QSOs are still an unsolved problem in the AGN context. They present wide troughs in the UV spectrum, due to material with velocities up to 0.2 c toward the observer. The…
Winds of massive stars are suspected to be inhomogeneous (or clumpy), which biases the measures of their mass loss rates. In High Mass X-ray Binaries (HMXBs), the compact object can be used as an orbiting X-ray point source to probe the…
Using Voigt-profile-fitting procedures on Keck HIRES spectra of nine QSOs we identify 1099 CIV absorber components clumped in 201 systems outside the Lyman forest over 1.6 < z < 4.4. With associated SiIV, CII, SiII and NV where available we…
In a recent paper by Rodrigues-Williams \& Hogan (RH94), a correlation between high-redshift, optically-selected QSOs and Zwicky clusters was reported at a very high significance level. Due to the fairly bright flux threshold of the cluster…
The existence of "radio weak BL Lac objects" (RWBLs) has been an open question, still unsolved, since the discovery that quasars could be radio-quiet or radio-loud. Recently several groups identified RWBL candidates, mostly found while…
Evidence indicates that supermassive black holes exist at the centers of most galaxies. Their mass correlates with the galactic bulge mass, suggesting a co-evolution with their host galaxies, most likely through powerful winds. X-ray…
Measurements of QSO clustering in the SDSS show that $\mathrm{z}>4$ QSOs are some of the most highly biased objects in the universe. Their large correlation lengths of $r_0 \sim 20h^{-1}$Mpc are comparable to the most massive clusters of…
We investigate the dependence on data quality of quasar properties measured from the CIV emission line region at high redshifts. Our measurements come from 32 epochs of Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Reverberation Mapping Project…
We have used the IRAM Plateau de Bure mm interferometer and the UKIRT 1-5 um Imager Spectrometer to test the connection between the major phases of spheroid growth and nuclear accretion by mapping CO emission in nine submm-detected QSOs at…