Related papers: The luminosity function of QSO host galaxies
We have analysed the optical luminosity-redshift distribution properties of bright QSOs, using a new large sample from the Hamburg/ESO survey. The sample provides insight into the hitherto poorly sampled bright tail of the luminosity…
We provide a simple theoretical model for the quasar luminosity function at high redshifts that naturally reproduces the statistical properties of the luminous SDSS quasar sample at redshifts z~4.3 and z>5.7. Our model is based on the…
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…
We will present the results of a NICMOS H-band imaging survey of a small sample of z ~ 2 to 3 radio-quiet quasars. We have resolved extension in at least 4 of 5 objects and find evidence for a wide range in the morphologies and magnitudes…
Direct and indirect observational evidence leads to the conclusion that high redshift QSOs did shine in the core of early type proto-galaxies during their main episode of star formation. Exploting this fact, we derive the rate of formation…
We report the discovery of three new cases of QSOs acting as strong gravitational lenses on background emission line galaxies: SDSS J0827+5224 (zQSO = 0.293, zs = 0.412), SDSS J0919+2720 (zQSO = 0.209, zs = 0.558), SDSS J1005+4016 (zQSO =…
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…
This paper addresses the global molecular gas properties of a representative sample of galaxies hosting low-luminosity quasistellar objects. An abundant supply of gas is necessary to fuel both the active galactic nucleus and any…
We present the results of a near-infrared imaging study of high redshift (z~3) quasars using the ESO-VLT. Our targets were selected to have luminosities among the highest known (absolute magnitude M_B <~ -28. We searched for resolved…
We investigate the evolutionary properties of a sample of quasars at 5<z<6.4 using the semi-analytical hierarchical model GAMETE/QSOdust. We find that the observed properties of these quasars are well reproduced by a common formation…
Type II quasars are luminous Active Galactic Nuclei whose centers are obscured by large amounts of gas and dust. In this paper we present 3-band HST images of nine type II quasars with redshifts 0.2 < z < 0.4 selected from the Sloan Digital…
We present rest-frame UV and Ly-alpha images of spatially-resolved structures around five high-redshift radio-loud quasars obtained with the WFPC2 camera on the Hubble Space Telescope. We find that all five quasars are extended and this…
We present near-IR images of five luminous quasars at z~2 and one at z~4 obtained with an experimental adaptive optics instrument at the ESO Very Large Telescope. The observations are part of a program aimed at demonstrating the…
We present the results of a high resolution (0.27 arcsec/px) near-infrared H band (1.65 micron) imaging survey of a complete sample of 20 flat spectrum radio quasars (FSRQ) extracted from the 2Jy catalogue of radio sources. The observed…
We present K band adaptive optics observations of three high-redshift (z ~ 2.2) high-luminosity quasars, all of which were studied for the first time. We also bserved several point spread function (PSF) calibrators, non-simultaneously…
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.…
We demonstrate that the evolution of the QSO luminosity density with epoch displays a striking similarity to the cosmological evolution of the field galaxy star formation rate, recently derived from a number of independent surveys. The QSO…
The X-ray luminosity function of distant (3<z<5.1) unabsorbed quasars has been measured. A sample of distant high-luminosity quasars ($10^{45} \leq L_{{\rm X},2-10} < 7.5 \times 10^{45}$ erg/s in the 2--10 keV energy band) from the catalog…
The morphological dependence of the luminosity function is studied using a sample containing approximately 1500 bright galaxies classified into Hubble types by visual inspections for a homogeneous sample obtained from the Sloan Digital Sky…
We study the observational signatures of a potential population of low-luminosity quasars at high redshifts in a LambdaCDM cosmology. We derive the evolution of the quasar luminosity function at fainter luminosities and higher redshifts…