Related papers: PKS 0537-441: extended [O II] emission and a binar…
We report the serendipitous discoveries of companion galaxies to two high-redshift quasars. SDSS J025617.7+001904 is a z=4.79 quasar included in our recent survey of faint quasars in the SDSS Stripe 82 region. The initial MMT slit…
We report the detection of a nearby emission-line companion to the z=4.695 quasar BR1202-0725. Deep narrow-band exposures on this field from the UH 2.2 m show a Ly alpha flux of 1.5\times\ten{-16} ergs cm^{-2} s^{-1}. High-resolution HST…
While BL Lacertae objects are widely believed to be highly beamed, low-luminosity radio galaxies, many radio-selected BL Lacs have extended radio power levels and optical emission lines that are too luminous to be low-luminosity radio…
We present the results of a narrow-band survey of QSO fields at redshifts that place the [OIII](5007) emission line in the 1% 2.16micron filter. We have observed 3 square arcminutes and detected one emission line candidate object in the…
We use the Hubble Space Telescope to analyse the extended [O III] 5007A emission in seven bright radio-quiet type 1 quasars (QSO1s), focusing on the morphology and physical conditions of their extended Narrow-Line Regions (NLRs). We find…
In this thesis, I present an investigation into the environments of quasars with respect to galaxy clusters, and environment evolution with redshift and luminosity. The orientation of the quasar with respect to the major axis of the closest…
In the course of a Cycle 8 snapshot survey, we have discovered that the z=1.565 quasar HE 0512-3329 is a double with image separation 0.644", almost certainly due to gravitational lensing. The two components differ in brightness by only 0.4…
We report the discovery, spectroscopic confirmation, and mass modelling of the gravitationally lensed quasar system PS J0630-1201. The lens was discovered by matching a photometric quasar catalogue compiled from Pan-STARRS and WISE…
We report new observations of CO (2-1) line emission toward five z~6 quasars using the Ka-band receiver system on the Expanded Very Large Array (EVLA). Strong detections were obtained in two of them, SDSS J092721.82+200123.7 and CFHQS…
We present the first optical polarimetric observations of the runaway microquasar LS 5039. Our results reveal the presence of a large amount (~5%) of polarized emission towards this binary system. By combining polarimetric and spectroscopic…
The peculiar QSO J0927+2943 shows multiple sets of emission lines in its optical spectrum. This signature has been interpreted as the relative motion between a black hole, either recoiling or bound in a binary system, and its host galaxy,…
We present new spectroscopic observations of the southern radio galaxy PKS1549-79 (z =0.152).Despite the flat spectrum character of the radio emission from this source, our optical spectra show no sign of the broad permitted lines and…
Lensed quasars are powerful cosmic laboratories; they are used to simultaneously probe various astrophysical phenomena. Microlensing by stars within distant galaxies acts as strong gravitational lenses of multiply imaged quasars, and…
We report optical spectroscopic observations of a sample of 6 low-galactic latitude microquasar candidates selected by cross-identification of X-ray and radio point source catalogs for |b|<5 degrees. Two objects resulted to be of clear…
We present the results of ground-based and HST imaging studies targeted on z>4.5 quasar fields. High-redshift galaxies identified in deep narrow-band Lyman alpha images of the fields surrounding the quasars BR1202-0725 (z=4.694) and…
Weak spectral features in BL Lacertae objects (BL Lac) often provide a unique opportunity to probe the inner region of this rare type of active galactic nucleus. We present a Hubble Space Telescope/Cosmic Origins Spectrograph observation of…
We have obtained high resolution (FWHM = 4.4 km/s) Keck spectra of images A and C of the gravitationally lensed QSO Q1422+231. The images are separated by 1.3" on the sky. In an absorption system at z = 3.538 gas column density variations…
We have obtained a 110 ksec Chandra ACIS-S exposure of UM425, a pair of QSOs at z=1.47 separated by 6.5 arcsec, which show remarkably similar emission and broad absorption line (BAL) profiles in the optical/UV. Our 5000 count X-ray spectrum…
Chandra ACIS observations of PKS 0521-365 find that the X-ray emission of this BL Lac object consists of emission from an unresolved core, a diffuse halo, and a 2 arcsec jet feature coincident with the inner radio/optical jet. A comparison…
Extended Ly$\alpha$ emission is routinely found around single quasars (QSO) across cosmic time. However, few studies have investigated how such emission changes in fields with physically associated QSO pairs, which should reside in dense…