Related papers: The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search. I…
This paper presents a catalogue of optimised pointings for differential photometry of 23,779 quasars extracted from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Catalogue and a score for each indicating the quality of the Field of View (FoV)…
We present the results from a survey of i-dropout objects selected from ~1550 deg^2 of multicolor imaging data from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, to search for luminous quasars at z>5.8. Objects with i*-z*>2.2 and z*<20.2 are selected, and…
Identifications of quasars at intermediate redshifts (2.2<z<3.5) are inefficient in most previous quasar surveys as their optical colors are similar to those of stars. The near-IR K-band excess technique has been suggested to overcome this…
Optical spectra of galaxies and quasars from large cosmological surveys are used to measure redshifts and infer distances. They are also rich with information on the intrinsic properties of these astronomical objects. However, their…
We demonstrate that gravitationally lensed quasars are easily recognized using image subtraction methods as time variable sources that are spatially extended. For Galactic latitudes |b|>20 deg, lensed quasars dominate the population of…
We present the current photometric dataset for the Sloan Lens ACS (SLACS) Survey, including HST photometry from ACS, WFPC2, and NICMOS. These data have enabled the confirmation of an additional 15 grade `A' (certain) lens systems, bringing…
We develop a method for separating quasars from other variable point sources using SDSS Stripe 82 light curve data for ~10,000 variable objects. To statistically describe quasar variability, we use a damped random walk model parametrized by…
Bayesian model selection methods provide a self-consistent probabilistic framework to test the validity of competing scenarios given a set of data. We present a case study application to strong gravitational lens parametric models. Our goal…
We exploit the spectral archive of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 to select unusual quasar spectra. The selection method is based on a combination of the power of self-organising maps and the visual inspection of a huge…
We present the discovery of three new quasars at z>6 in 1300 deg^2 of SDSS imaging data, J114816.64+525150.3 (z=6.43), J104845.05+463718.3 (z=6.23) and J163033.90+401209.6 (z=6.05). The first two objects have weak Ly alpha emission lines;…
We report on i-band snapshot observations of 157 Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasars at 4<z<5.4 using the Advanced Camera for Surveys on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) to search for evidence of gravitational lensing of these sources.…
Quasars can be used to measure baryon acoustic oscillations at high redshift, which are considered as direct tracers of the most distant large-scale structures in the Universe. It is fundamental to select quasars from observations before…
We present a detailed characterization of the 849 broad-line quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project. Our quasar sample covers a redshift range of 0.1<z<4.5 and is flux-limited to i_PSF<21.7 without…
We report the discovery of a gravitationally lensed quasar identified serendipitously in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). The object, SDSS J094604.90+183541.8, was initially targeted for spectroscopy as a luminous red galaxy, but the…
We present a systematic search for molecular hydrogen absorption systems at high redshift in quasar spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) II Data Release 7 and SDSS-III Data Release 9. We have selected candidates using a modified…
We present photometric and spectroscopic observations of 15 high-redshift quasars (z > 3.6) discovered from ~140 deg^2 of five-color (u'g'r'i'z') imaging data taken by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) during its commissioning phase. The…
We present a study of variable faint optical sources discovered by comparing the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey (POSS) catalogs. We use SDSS measurements to photometrically recalibrate several…
We present a catalog of 49 spectroscopic strong gravitational lens candidates selected from a Sloan Digital Sky Survey sample of 50996 luminous red galaxies. Potentially lensed star-forming galaxies are detected through the presence of…
We present a statistical analysis of the final lens sample from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Lens Search (SQLS). The number distribution of a complete subsample of 19 lensed quasars selected from 50,836 source quasars is compared…
We present the Data Release 12 Quasar catalog (DR12Q) from the Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) of the SDSS-III. This catalog includes all SDSS-III/BOSS objects that were spectroscopically targeted as quasar candidates during…