Related papers: The Quasar Proximity Effect as an Alternative Prob…
Quasars are effective tracers of the large-scale distribution of galaxies at high redshift thanks to their high luminosity and dedicated surveys. Previous studies have shown that quasars exhibit a bias similar to that of rich groups,…
Interacting quasar pairs (QPs, either dual or binary) provide crucial insights into galaxy mergers, black hole growth, and large-scale structure formation. The current literature reports fewer than 200 spectroscopically confirmed QPs,…
Proximity zones of high-redshift quasars are unique probes of their central supermassive black holes as well as the intergalactic medium in the last stages of reionization. We present 22 new measurements of proximity zones of quasars with…
The clustering of quasars on small scales yields fundamental constraints on models of quasar evolution and the buildup of supermassive black holes. This paper describes the first systematic survey to discover high redshift binary quasars.…
We exploit a set of high signal-to-noise (~70), low-resolution (R~800) quasar spectra to search for the signature of the so-called proximity effect in the HI Ly alpha forest. Our sample consists of 17 bright quasars in the redshift range…
We report the discovery of a pair of z = 4.25 quasars with a separation of 33 arcseconds. The brighter of the two objects was identified as a high-redshift quasar candidate from Sloan Digital Sky Survey multicolor imaging data, and the…
We study quasar proximity zones in the redshift range $5.77 \leq z \leq 6.54$ by homogeneously analyzing $34$ medium resolution spectra, encompassing both archival and newly obtained data, and exploiting recently updated systemic redshift…
Large-scale surveys over the last years have revealed about 300 QSOs at redshift above 6. Follow-up observations identified surprising properties, such as the very high black hole (BH) masses, spatial correlations with surrounding cold gas…
Strongly lensed quasars with time-delay measurements are well known to provide the "time-delay distances" $D_{\Delta t}=(1+z_L)D_LD_S/D_{LS}$ and the angular diameter distances to lens galaxies $D_L$. These two kinds of distances give…
We report the discovery of a quasar pair at z=5 separated by 21 arcsec. Both objects were identified as quasar candidates using simple color selection techniques applied to photometric catalogs from the CFHT Legacy Survey (CFHTLS). Spectra…
Measuring the quasar distance through joint analysis of spectroastrometry (SA) and reverberation mapping (RM) observations is a new method for driving the development of cosmology. In this paper, we carry out detailed simulation and…
We present the first results from our survey of intervening and proximate Lyman limit systems (LLSs) at $z$$\sim$2.0-2.5 using the Wide Field Camera 3 on-board the Hubble Space Telescope. The quasars in our sample are projected pairs with…
We have used spectra of 181 projected quasar pairs at separations $\le 1.5$ arcmins from the Sloan Digital Sky-Survey Data Release 12 in the redshift range of 2.5 to 3.5 to probe the proximity regions of the foreground quasars. We study the…
The identification of physically associated kiloparsec-scale quasar pairs is important for understanding galaxy evolution, the growth of supermassive black holes, and their co-evolution with host galaxies. However, their rarity and the high…
We present a sample of 218 new quasar pairs with proper transverse separations R_prop < 1 Mpc/h over the redshift range 0.5 < z < 3.0, discovered from an extensive follow up campaign to find companions around the Sloan Digital Sky Survey…
The impact of quasars on their galaxy neighbors is an important factor in the understanding of the galaxy evolution models. The aim of this work is to characterize the close environments of quasars at low redshift (z$<$0.2) with the most…
Dual quasars separated at kiloparsec scale are widely regarded as precursors to binary supermassive black holes and offer a key insight into the dynamical evolution of galaxy mergers. Our series of studies focus on searching for dual…
We investigate the distribution of companion galaxies around quasars using {\em Hubble Space Telescope} ({\em HST}) Advanced Camera for Surveys Wide Field Camera (ACS/WFC) archival images. Our master sample contains 532 quasars which have…
It is pointed out that there are now known four very close pairs of QSOs with separations < 5 arcsec and very different redshifts. Several estimates of the probability that they are accidental configurations range between 10^{-7} and 3.5 x…
We have used the KPNO 4-meter Mayall telescope to image 0.83 square degrees of sky in six fields at high galactic latitude in six filters spanning 3000-10000\AA\ to magnitude limits ranging from 22.1 to 23.8. As a first use of this…