J/ApJ/779/161 MgII absorbers in 0.4<z<2.3 SDSS QSOs (Seyffert+, 2013)
Precious metals in SDSS quasar spectra.
II. Tracking the evolution of strong, 0.4<z<2.3 Mg II absorbers with
thousands of systems.
Seyffert E.N., Cooksey K.L., Simcoe R.A., O'Meara J.M., Kao M.M.,
Prochaska J.X.
<Astrophys. J., 779, 161 (2013)>
=2013ApJ...779..161S 2013ApJ...779..161S
ADC_Keywords: QSOs ; Redshifts ; Equivalent widths
Keywords: galaxies: halos; intergalactic medium; quasars: absorption lines;
techniques: spectroscopic
Abstract:
We have performed an analysis of over 34000 Mg II doublets at
0.36<z<2.29 in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 quasar
spectra; the catalog, advanced data products, and tools for analysis
are publicly available. The catalog was divided into 14 small redshift
bins with roughly 2500 doublets in each and from Monte Carlo
simulations, we estimate 50% completeness at rest equivalent width
Wr~0.8Å. The equivalent width frequency distribution is
described well by an exponential model at all redshifts, and the
distribution becomes flatter with increasing redshift, i.e., there are
more strong systems relative to weak ones. Direct comparison with
previous SDSS Mg II surveys reveals that we recover at least 70% of
the doublets in these other catalogs, in addition to detecting
thousands of new systems. We discuss how these surveys came by their
different results, which qualitatively agree but because of the very
small uncertainties, differ by a statistically significant amount. The
estimated physical cross section of Mg II-absorbing galaxy halos
increased approximately threefold from z=0.4 to z=2.3, while the
Wr≥1Å absorber line density, dNMgII/dX, grew by roughly 45%.
Finally, we explore the different evolution of various absorber
populations --damped Lyα absorbers, Lyman limit systems, strong
C IV absorbers, and strong and weaker MgII systems -- across cosmic
time (0<z<6).
Description:
Our MgII absorber catalog was constructed using a subset of the SDSS
DR7 quasar catalog (Schneider et al. 2010, VII/260) and following an
equivalent methodology to the CIV survey described in detail in Paper
I (Cooksey+, 2013, J/ApJ/763/37).
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 68 79595 Sightline summary
table2.dat 71 35629 MgII doublet systems summary
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See also:
VII/270 : SDSS quasar catalog: tenth data release (Paris+, 2014)
VII/260 : The SDSS-DR7 quasar catalog (Schneider+, 2010)
J/PASJ/65/8 : Catalog of SDSS quasar absorption redshift (Qin+, 2013)
J/ApJ/776/114 : MAGIICAT. I. MgII Absorber-Galaxy Catalog (Nielsen+, 2013)
J/ApJ/775/78 : Asorption systems in z∼3 QSOs (Fumagalli+, 2013)
J/ApJ/765/137 : HST survey for Lyman limit systems. II. (O'Meara+, 2013)
J/ApJ/764/9 : High-z MgII absorption QSOs with FIRE. II. (Matejek+, 2013)
J/ApJ/763/37 : Paper I: 1.5<z<4.5 CIV absorbers (Cooksey+, 2013)
J/ApJ/761/112 : MgII absorption QSOs with FIRE (Matejek+, 2012)
J/A+A/547/L1 : SDSS-III DR9 DLA catalogue (Noterdaeme+, 2012)
J/ApJ/758/135 : DEEP2 galaxies with UV spectra in the EGS (Kornei+, 2012)
J/ApJ/748/131 : MgII absorbers in SDSS-DR7 quasar catalog (Shen+, 2012)
J/ApJ/736/42 : HST QSO Catalog (Ribaudo+, 2011)
J/ApJS/194/45 : QSO properties from SDSS-DR7 (Shen+, 2011)
J/ApJS/194/42 : SDSS-DR3 MgII-based black hole masses (Rafiee+, 2011)
J/AJ/141/137 : Pittsburgh SDSS MgII QSO catalog (Quider+, 2011)
J/ApJ/727/47 : The MgII cross-section of red galaxies (Bowen+, 2011)
J/ApJ/724/L176 : MgII absorbing gas around galaxies (Chen+, 2010)
J/MNRAS/405/2302 : Improved redshifts for SDSS quasar spectra (Hewett+, 2010)
J/ApJ/718/392 : SDSS Lyman limit systems at z∼3.5 (Prochaska+, 2010)
J/ApJ/714/1521 : Spectroscopy of galaxies around distant QSOs (Chen+, 2010)
J/ApJ/708/868 : CIV candidates (Cooksey+, 2010)
J/ApJ/698/819 : MgII and LRGs cross-correlation analysis (Lundgren+, 2009)
J/ApJ/679/239 : Associated MgII absorbers (Vanden+, 2008)
J/ApJ/660/1093 : Weak MgII absorbers at 0.4<z<2.4 (Narayanan+, 2007)
J/MNRAS/371/495 : Catalog of 1806 MgII absorbers from SDSS DR3 (Bouche+, 2006)
J/ApJ/639/766 : SDSS-DR3 strong MgII absorbers (Prochter+, 2006)
J/ApJ/636/610 : Damped Lyα systems at z<1.65 (Rao+, 2006)
J/A+A/421/41 : FORS Deep Field UV to blue photometry (Gabasch+, 2004)
J/MNRAS/354/L25 : MgII absorbers in SDSS QSOs (Bouche+, 2004)
J/AJ/123/567 : SDSS quasar catalog I: Early Data Release (Schneider+, 2002)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 14 A14 --- QSO Adopted MJD-plate-fiber QSO identifier
16- 17 I2 h RAh Hour of Right Ascension (J2000) (1)
19- 20 I2 min RAm Minute of Right Ascension (J2000) (1)
22- 26 F5.2 s RAs Second of Right Ascension (J2000) (1)
28 A1 --- DE- Sign of the Declination (J2000) (1)
29- 30 I2 deg DEd Degree of Declination (J2000) (1)
32- 33 I2 arcmin DEm Arcminute of Declination (J2000) (1)
35- 38 F4.1 arcsec DEs Arcsecond of Declination (J2000) (1)
40- 45 F6.4 --- zQSO [0.3/5.4] QSO redshift (1)
47- 51 F5.2 --- <S/N> [4/78] Median signal-to-noise (2)
53 I1 --- fBAL [0/4] Binary BAL flag (3)
55- 58 F4.2 --- dXmax [0/5] Maximum co-moving pathlength δXmax
available in the sightline
60 I1 --- N2 [0/8] Number of candidate MgII doublets (table 2)
62 I1 --- N [0/7] Number of confirmed MgII doublets
64- 68 F5.3 --- dXMg [0.02/0.5]? Pathlength δXMgII blocked
by NMgII doublets in the sightline
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Note (1): From the DR7 QSO catalog (Schneider et al. 2010, VII/260).
Note (2): Measured in the region searched for MgII.
Note (3): Indicates which sightlines were considered BALs by at least one
author (4) and which were confirmed by the authors as BALs to
exclude (0).
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table2.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1 I1 --- Code [1/2] System code (1)
3- 16 A14 --- QSO Adopted MJD-plate-fiber QSO identifier
18- 23 F6.4 --- zQSO [0.3/5] QSO redshift
25- 31 F7.5 --- z2796 [0.3/2.3] MgII 2796Å line redshift
33 A1 --- f_z2796 [a] Flag on z2796 (2)
35- 40 F6.3 0.1nm W2796 [-0.5/8.9] Rest equivalent width of MgII line
42- 46 F5.3 0.1nm e_W2796 [0.02/3] Uncertainty in W2796
48- 53 F6.3 0.1nm W2803 [-0.7/19.5] Rest equivalent width of
MgII 2803Å line
55- 59 F5.3 0.1nm e_W2803 [0.02/4] Uncertainty in W2803
61- 65 F5.3 --- CW2796 [0.01/1] Completeness fraction of doublet (3)
67- 71 F5.3 --- e_CW2796 [0/0.8] Uncertainty in Comp
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Note (1): Code as follows:
1 = Intervening system (δVQSO < -5000km/s), not in visual BAL QSO
sightlines.
2 = Intrinsic system (δVQSO ≥ -5000km/s).
Note (2):
a = Absorber within ±3000km/s of quasar CIV emission.
Note (3): For the doublet from the whole survey average.
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
References:
Cooksey et al. Paper I. 2013ApJ...763...37C 2013ApJ...763...37C Cat. J/ApJ/763/37
(End) Greg Schwarz [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 07-May-2015