FIRST-2MASS RED QUASARS: TRANSITIONAL OBJECTS EMERGING FROM THE DUST
- Department of Physics and Yale Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Yale University, P.O. Box 208121, New Haven, CT 06520-8121 (United States)
- Leibniz Institut fuer Astrophysik, An der Sternwarte 16, D-14482 Potsdam (Germany)
- National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA (United States)
- Astronomy Department, California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA 91125 (United States)
- Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071 (United States)
- Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, 1 Cyclotron Road, Berkeley, CA 92420 (United States)
- Institut d'Astrophysique de Paris, UMR7095 CNRS, Universite Pierre et Marie Curie, 98 bis bd Arago, F-75014 Paris (France)
- Astronomy Department, University of Florida, 211 Bryant Space Science Center, P.O. Box 112055, Gainesville, FL 32611 (United States)
- Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802 (United States)
We present a sample of 120 dust-reddened quasars identified by matching radio sources detected at 1.4 GHz in the Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty Centimeters survey with the near-infrared Two Micron All Sky Survey catalog and color-selecting red sources. Optical and/or near-infrared spectroscopy provide broad wavelength sampling of their spectral energy distributions that we use to determine their reddening, characterized by E(B - V). We demonstrate that the reddening in these quasars is best described by Small-Magellanic-Cloud-like dust. This sample spans a wide range in redshift and reddening (0.1 {approx}< z {approx}< 3, 0.1 {approx}< E(B - V) {approx}< 1.5), which we use to investigate the possible correlation of luminosity with reddening. At every redshift, dust-reddened quasars are intrinsically the most luminous quasars. We interpret this result in the context of merger-driven quasar/galaxy co-evolution where these reddened quasars are revealing an emergent phase during which the heavily obscured quasar is shedding its cocoon of dust prior to becoming a 'normal' blue quasar. When correcting for extinction, we find that, depending on how the parent population is defined, these red quasars make up {approx}< 15%-20% of the luminous quasar population. We estimate, based on the fraction of objects in this phase, that its duration is 15%-20% as long as the unobscured, blue quasar phase.
- OSTI ID:
- 22092245
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 757, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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