Related papers: What can we learn from VIRMOS quasars?
Exploring the possibility that fundamental constants of Nature might vary temporally or spatially constitutes one of the key science drivers for the European Southern Observatory's ESPRESSO spectrograph on the VLT and for the HIRES…
We present a new non-parametric method to quantify morphologies of galaxies based on a particular family of learning machines called support vector machines. The method, that can be seen as a generalization of the classical CAS…
It is commonly accepted that quasar redshifts have a cosmological character and that most of the quasars are at Gigaparsec distances. However, there are some cases where several quasars with completely different redshifts and a nearby…
The NASA/ISO Key Project on active galactic nuclei (AGN) seeks to better understand the broad-band spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of these sources from radio to X-rays, with particular emphasis on infrared properties. The ISO sample…
In the context of AGN unification scheme rapid variability properties play an important role in understanding any intrinsic differences between sources in different classes. In this respect any clue based on spectral properties will be very…
Cosmology relies on the Cosmological Principle, i.e., the hypothesis that the Universe is homogeneous and isotropic on large scales. This implies in particular that the counts of galaxies should approach a homogeneous scaling with volume at…
The goal of the present paper is to assess the usefulness of quasars as cosmological distance indicators. We calibrate, in a model-independent way, the non-linear relation between X-ray and UV emission to derive quasar luminosity distances.…
Galaxy redshift surveys are a major tool to address the most challenging cosmological problems facing cosmology, like the nature of dark energy and properties dark matter. The same observations are useful for a much larger variety of…
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…
Virial-based methods for estimating active supermassive black hole masses are now commonly used on extremely large spectroscopic quasar catalogues. Most spectral analyses, though, do not pay enough attention to a detailed continuum…
We have undertaken a dedicated program of automatic source classification in the WISE database merged with SuperCOSMOS scans, comprehensively identifying galaxies, quasars and stars on most of the unconfused sky. We use the Support Vector…
By observing the high galactic latitude equatorial sky in drift scan mode with the QUEST (QUasar Equatorial Survey Team) Phase 1 camera, multi-bandpass photometry on a large strip of sky, resolved over a large range of time scales (from…
High resolution maps of maser emission provide very detailed information on processes occurring in circumstellar envelopes of late-type stars. A particularly detailed picture of the innermost shells around AGB stars is provided by SiO…
We describe the algorithm for selecting quasar candidates for optical spectroscopy in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Quasar candidates are selected via their non-stellar colors in "ugriz" broad-band photometry, and by matching unresolved…
We use six different cosmological models to study the recently-released compilation of X-ray and UV flux measurements of 2038 quasars (QSOs) which span the redshift range $0.009 \leq z \leq 7.5413$. We find, for the full QSO data set, that…
Feedback from quasars and AGNs is being invoked frequently in several cosmological settings. Currently, order of magnitude, or more, uncertainties in the structure of both the wind and the 'obscuring torus' make predictions highly…
Equilibrium dynamical models are essential tools for extracting science from surveys of our Galaxy. We show how models can be tested with data from a survey before the survey's selection function has been determined. We illustrate the…
We present synthesis models of the X-ray background where the available X-ray observational constraints are used to derive information on the AGN population properties. We show the need for luminous X-ray absorbed AGNs, the QSO2s, in…
Systematic exploration of the observable parameter space, covered by large digital sky surveys spanning a range of wavelengths, will be one of the primary modes of research with a Virtual Observatory (VO). This will include searches for…
The aim of this work is to develop a comprehensive method for classifying sources in large sky surveys and we apply the techniques to the VIMOS Public Extragalactic Redshift Survey (VIPERS). Using the optical (u*, g', r', i') and NIR data…