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arXiv 0909.3962astro-ph.CO
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研究星系际氦和数百个远紫外亮类星体的十条新视线,来自SDSS、GALEX和HST

Ten More New Sightlines for the Study of Intergalactic Helium, and Hundreds of Far-UV-Bright Quasars, from SDSS, GALEX, and HST

David Syphers, Scott F. Anderson, Wei Zheng, Daryl Haggard, Avery Meiksin, Donald P. Schneider, Donald G. York

摘要:

沿类星体视线的吸收仍然是在大部分星系际介质(IGM)中HeII再电离的最敏感的直接措施之一。直到最近,只有不到六个适合于HeII Gunn-Peterson测试的未被遮蔽的类星体视线被发现;虽然这些少数人表现出很大的希望,但小样本量限制了宇宙学推断的信心。我们最近又增加了9个这样的干净的HeII类星体,利用SDSS类星体样本,GALEX的宽带紫外成像和HST的高产紫外光谱确认。在这里,我们通过将SDSS DR 7和GALEX GR 4 +5交叉关联到目录428个SDSS和165个z>2.78的其他类星体来显着扩展这种方法,这些类星体可能(~70%)有GALEX检测,这表明它们在远紫外线下是明亮的。侦察HST周期16补充棱镜数据为29个这些新的类星体GALEX匹配光谱确认17确实远紫外明亮。这些确认中至少有10个具有清晰的视线,一直到HeII莱曼α,大大增加了已知的干净HeII类星体的数量,并重申了我们的选择技术的数量级提高了效率。将这个项目和我们过去的项目的确认结合起来,产生了二十多个HeII类星体,使样本增加了五倍。这些提供了实质性的进展,朝向样本的HeII类星体的视线足够大,并跨越足够的红移范围,使统计IGM研究,可能会避免个别对象的特殊性和视线的变化。我们扩展的数百个高可能性远紫外亮类星体的目录也将有助于理解类星体本身的极端紫外特性。

英文摘要:

Absorption along quasar sightlines remains among the most sensitive direct measures of HeII reionization in much of the intergalactic medium (IGM). Until recently, fewer than a half-dozen unobscured quasar sightlines suitable for the HeII Gunn-Peterson test were known; although these handful demonstrated great promise, the small sample size limited confidence in cosmological inferences. We have recently added nine more such clean HeII quasars, exploiting SDSS quasar samples, broadband UV imaging from GALEX, and high-yield UV spectroscopic confirmations from HST. Here we markedly expand this approach by cross-correlating SDSS DR7 and GALEX GR4+5 to catalog 428 SDSS and 165 other quasars with z>2.78 having likely (~70%) GALEX detections, suggesting they are bright into the far-UV. Reconnaissance HST Cycle 16 Supplemental prism data for 29 of these new quasar-GALEX matches spectroscopically confirm 17 as indeed far-UV bright. At least 10 of these confirmations have clean sightlines all the way down to HeII Lyman-alpha, substantially expanding the number of known clean HeII quasars, and reaffirming the order of magnitude enhanced efficiency of our selection technique. Combined confirmations from this and our past programs yield more than twenty HeII quasars, quintupling the sample. These provide substantial progress toward a sample of HeII quasar sightlines large enough, and spanning a sufficient redshift range, to enable statistical IGM studies that may avoid individual object peculiarity and sightline variance. Our expanded catalog of hundreds of high-likelihood far-UV-bright QSOs additionally will be useful for understanding the extreme-UV properties of the quasars themselves.

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