The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Sixteenth Data Release
Abstract
We present the final Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV) quasar catalog from Data Release 16 of the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS). This catalog comprises the largest selection of spectroscopically confirmed quasars to date. The full catalog includes two sub-catalogs: a "superset" of all SDSS-IV/eBOSS objects targeted as quasars containing 1,440,615 observations and a quasar-only catalog containing 750,414 quasars, including 225,082 new quasars appearing in an SDSS data release for the first time, as well as known quasars from SDSS-I/II/III. We present automated identification and redshift information for these quasars alongside data from visual inspections for 320,161 spectra. The quasar-only catalog is estimated to be 99.8% complete with 0.3% to 1.3% contamination. Automated and visual inspection redshifts are supplemented by redshifts derived via principal component analysis and emission lines. We include emission line redshifts for H, H, Mg II, C III], C IV, and Ly. Identification and key characteristics generated by automated algorithms are presented for 99,856 Broad Absorption Line quasars and 35,686 Damped Lyman Alpha quasars. In addition to SDSS photometric data, we also present multi-wavelength data for quasars from GALEX, UKIDSS, WISE, FIRST, ROSAT/2RXS, XMM-Newton, and Gaia. Calibrated digital optical spectra for these quasars can be obtained from the SDSS Science Archive Server.
Cite
@article{arxiv.2007.09001,
title = {The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Sixteenth Data Release},
author = {Brad W. Lyke and Alexandra N. Higley and J. N. McLane and Danielle P. Schurhammer and Adam D. Myers and Ashley J. Ross and Kyle Dawson and Solène Chabanier and Paul Martini and Nicolás G. Busca and Hélion du Mas des Bourboux and Mara Salvato and Alina Streblyanska and Pauline Zarrouk and Etienne Burtin and Scott F. Anderson and Julian Bautista and Dmitry Bizyaev and W. N. Brandt and Jonathan Brinkmann and Joel R. Brownstein and Johan Comparat and Paul Green and Axel de la Macorra and Andrea Muñoz Gutiérrez and Jiamin Hou and Jeffrey A. Newman and Nathalie Palanque-Delabrouille and Isabelle Pâris and Will J. Percival and Patrick Petitjean and James Rich and Graziano Rossi and Donald P. Schneider and Alexander Smith and M. Vivek and Benjamin Alan Weaver},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2007.09001},
year = {2020}
}
Comments
32 pages, 13 figures, 6 tables. Accepted to ApJS. Catalog files are available at https://data.sdss.org/sas/dr16/eboss/qso/DR16Q/ . A summary of all SDSS BAO and RSD measurements with legacy figures can be found at https://www.sdss.org/science/final-bao-and-rsd-measurements/ while full cosmological interpretation of these can be found at https://www.sdss.org/science/cosmology-results-from-eboss/