| Authors | Schneider, Donald P.; Hall, Patrick B.; Richards, Gordon T.; Strauss, Michael A.; Vanden Berk, Daniel E.; Anderson, Scott F.; Brandt, W. N.; Fan, Xiaohui; Jester, Sebastian; Gray, Jim; Gunn, James E.; SubbaRao, Mark U.; Thakar, Anirudda R.; Stoughton, Chris; Szalay, Alexander S.; Yanny, Brian; York, Donald G.; Bahcall, Neta A.; Barentine, J.; Blanton, Michael R.; Brewington, Howard; Brinkmann, J.; Brunner, Robert J.; Castander, Francisco J.; Csabai, István; Frieman, Joshua A.; Fukugita, Masataka; Harvanek, Michael; Hogg, David W.; IveziÄ, Željko; Kent, Stephen M.; Kleinman, S. J.; Knapp, G. R.; Kron, Richard G.; KrzesiÅski, Jurek; Long, Daniel C.; Lupton, Robert H.; Nitta, Atsuko; Pier, Jeffrey R.; Saxe, David H.; Shen, Yue; Snedden, Stephanie A.; Weinberg, David H.; Wu, Jian |
| Abstract | We present the fourth edition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar Catalog. The catalog contains 77,429 objects; this is an increase of over 30,000 entries since the previous edition. The catalog consists of the objects in the SDSS Fifth Data Release that have luminosities larger than Mi=-22.0 (in a cosmology with H0=70 km s-1 Mpc-1, ΩM=0.3, and ΩΛ=0.7), have at least one emission line with FWHM larger than 1000 km s-1 or have interesting/complex absorption features, are fainter than i~15.0, and have highly reliable redshifts. The area covered by the catalog is ~5740 deg2. The quasar redshifts range from 0.08 to 5.41, with a median value of 1.48; the catalog includes 891 quasars at redshifts greater than 4, of which 36 are at redshifts greater than 5. Approximately half of the catalog quasars have i<19 nearly all have i<21. For each object the catalog presents positions accurate to better than 0.2" rms per coordinate, five-band (ugriz) CCD-based photometry with typical accuracy of 0.03 mag, and information on the morphology and selection method. The catalog also contains basic radio, near-infrared, and X-ray emission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area surveys. The calibrated digital spectra cover the wavelength region 3800-9200 Å at a spectral resolution of ~=2000 the spectra can be retrieved from the public database using the information provided in the catalog. The average SDSS colors of quasars as a function of redshift, derived from the catalog entries, are presented in tabular form. Approximately 96% of the objects in the catalog were discovered by the SDSS. |
