J/ApJS/280/73 AllBRICQS bright QSOs in the Northern Hemisphere (Choi+, 2025)
AllBRICQS: the discovery of luminous quasars in the Northern hemisphere.
Choi Y., Fu Y., Im M., Wu X.-B., Onken C.A., Wolf C., Chang S.-W.,
Choi H., Jeong M., Kim Y., Lim Gu, Pang Y., Kim T., Sohn J., Kim D.,
Kim Ji H., Ko E., Paek G.S.H., Jung S.
<Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 280, 73 (2025)>
=2025ApJS..280...73C 2025ApJS..280...73C
ADC_Keywords: QSOs; Spectra, optical; Redshifts; Surveys; Colors; Infrared;
Proper motions
Keywords: Quasars ; Active galactic nuclei ; Spectroscopy ; Redshift surveys ;
Catalogs
Abstract:
We present the second catalog of bright quasars from the All-sky
BRIght, Complete Quasar Survey (AllBRICQS), focusing on
spectroscopically observed quasars in the Northern Hemisphere with
Galactic latitude |b|>10°. This catalog includes their spectral
data, redshifts, and luminosities. AllBRICQS aims to identify the last
remaining optically bright quasars using data from the Wide-field
Infrared Survey Explorer and Gaia all-sky survey Data Release 3 (DR3).
AllBRICQS searches for quasars that are brighter than BP=16.5 or
RP=16mag in Gaia DR3, based on simple selection criteria. Here, we
report 62 new AllBRICQS quasars spanning various types, which include
typical broad emission line quasars and the most luminous iron
low-ionization broad absorption line quasars discovered to date.
Spectroscopic observations were conducted using the Long-Slit
Spectrograph on the 1.8m telescope at Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy
Observatory, the Yunnan Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera on the
2.4m telescope at Lijiang Observatory, and the Beijing Faint Object
Spectrograph and Camera on the 2.16m telescope at Xinglong
Observatory. We applied flux calibration using Zwicky Transient
Facility broadband photometry to correct for attenuation due to
intermittent thin clouds during the observations. Redshifts were
determined using inverse-variance weighted cross-correlation methods.
Our targets span the bolometric luminosity range of
44.9<log(Lbol/erg.s-1)<48.0 at redshifts between 0.09 and 2.48.
These confirmed AllBRICQS quasars provide a valuable resource for
future research into quasar evolution, black holes, their
environments, and their host galaxies across multiple wavelengths.
Description:
To expand the All-sky BRIght, Complete Quasar Survey (AllBRICQS;
Onken+ 2023PASA...40...10O 2023PASA...40...10O) sample and investigate bright quasar
candidates in the Northern Hemisphere, we conducted long-slit
spectroscopic observations of 75 targets from the 82 remaining
candidates yet to be observed in this region.
Among the 75 targets, 68 were observed with the 1.8m telescope at the
Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory (BOAO) in South Korea. An
additional eight and four targets were observed with the Lijiang 2.4m
telescope (LJT) at the Lijiang Observatory (LJO) and the Xinglong
2.16m telescope (XLT) at the Xinglong Observatory (XLO), respectively,
both located in China. Notably, five candidates were observed at
multiple observatories to ensure consistency and data quality.
The observations were conducted between UT 2022-Oct-27 and 2024-Dec-01.
Observations at BOAO utilized the Long-Slit Spectrograph, configured
with a slit width of 3.6" and covering a wavelength range from 3500 to
10500Å. The 150 V grating provided a dispersion of 5.2Å/pix, and
a spectral resolution of R∼280. Spectra were obtained over six nights
between UT 2022 October 27 and 2024 December 1.
At LJO, we used the Yunnan Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera
(YFOSC), configured with slit widths of 1.8" and 2.5", covering a
wavelength range of 5120-9850Å. The grism provided a dispersion of
1.5Å/pix, corresponding to a spectral resolution of R∼600 and 800
at 6600Å, depending on the slit width. These spectra were acquired
over four nights between UT 2022 December 13 and 2023 February 24.
At XLO, we employed the Beijing Faint Object Spectrograph and Camera
(BFOSC), which covers a wavelength range of 4107-6724Å with a slit
width of 2.3" and a dispersion of 1.34Å/pix, corresponding to R∼550
at 5100Å. The spectra at XLO were obtained over a single night on
UT 2022 November 12.
File Summary:
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FileName Lrecl Records Explanations
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ReadMe 80 . This file
table1.dat 89 62 AllBRICQS confirmed quasars
table4.dat 53 62 *ZTF synthetic photometry magnitude of quasars
(Appendix A)
table5.dat 34 60 Bolometric and continuum luminosities of quasars
(Appendix B)
table6.dat 47 114260 The full optical spectra of all 62 quasars
(Appendix E)
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Note on table4.dat: The synthetic photometry results in the ZTF DR22 g- and
r-filters (Bellm+ 2019PASP..131a8002B 2019PASP..131a8002B; Masci+ 2019PASP..131a8003M 2019PASP..131a8003M). A
detailed explanation of the flux-scaling process is provided in
Section 4.2.
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See also:
II/179 : Southern Spectrophotometric Standards. I + II (Hamuy+ 1992,94)
VII/243 : SDSS quasar catalog. III. (Schneider+, 2005)
II/328 : AllWISE Data Release (Cutri+ 2013)
V/154 : Sloan Digital Sky Surveys (SDSS), Release 16 (DR16) (Ahumada+, 2020)
VII/289 : SDSS quasar catalog, sixteenth data release (DR16Q) (Lyke+, 2020)
II/365 : CatWISE2020 catalog (updated version 28-Jan-2021) (Marocco+, 2021)
VII/292 : DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys DR8 photometric redshifts (Duncan, 2022)
I/355 : Gaia DR3 Part 1. Main source (Gaia Collaboration, 2022)
I/356 : Gaia DR3 Part 2. Extra-galactic (Gaia Collaboration, 2022)
VII/294 : The Million Quasars (Milliquas) catalogue, version 8 (Flesch, 2023)
J/ApJ/269/352 : Quasar evolution (Schmidt+, 1983)
J/AJ/109/1498 : Large Bright Quasar Survey VI (LBQS) (Hewett+, 1995)
J/ApJS/135/227 : The FIRST bright quasar survey. III. (Becker+, 2001)
J/ApJS/165/1 : BAL QSOs from SDSS DR3 (Trump+, 2006)
J/ApJS/175/116 : SNU bright quasar survey (SNUQSO) (Lee+, 2008)
J/ApJ/792/30 : NEOWISE magnitudes for near-Earth objects (Mainzer+, 2014)
J/ApJS/219/39 : QSOs selection from SDSS and WISE (Richards+, 2015)
J/ApJS/221/12 : AGNs in the MIR using AllWISE data (Secrest+, 2015)
J/ApJS/241/34 : SDSS Reverberation Mapping (SDSS-RM) project (Shen+, 2019)
J/A+A/649/A3 : Gaia EDR3 photometric passbands (Riello+, 2021)
J/ApJS/261/32 : Finding GPQs. II. Sp. obs. of |b|<20° QSOs (Fu+, 2022)
J/MNRAS/511/572 : High-redshift Ultraluminous QSOs with SMSS DR3 (Onken+, 2022)
J/A+A/674/A41 : Composite quasar spectra from Gaia DR3 (Gaia Coll., 2023)
J/ApJS/269/27 : DESI z≳5 quasar survey. I. New z∼4.7-6.6 QSOs (Yang+, 2023)
J/ApJS/271/54 : CatNorth: improved GaiaDR3 QSO cat. with PS1+WISE (Fu+, 2024)
J/ApJS/273/21 : The Plane Quasar Survey: DR1 (Werk+, 2024)
J/ApJ/964/69 : Quaia, the Gaia-unWISE Quasar catalog (Storey-Fisher+, 2024)
Byte-by-byte Description of file: table1.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 10 A10 --- Target Quasar identifier (JHHMM+DDMM)
12 A1 --- f_Target [*] *: targets lacking CatWISE data
14- 21 F8.4 deg RAdeg Right ascension (J2000)
23- 29 F7.4 deg DEdeg [20.9/86.7] Declination (J2000)
31- 35 F5.2 mag BPmag [15.48/17.98] Gaia DR3 BP-band magnitude
37- 41 F5.2 mag RPmag [14.82/16.25] Gaia DR3 RP-band magnitude
43- 46 F4.2 mag W1-W2 [0.73/1.47] W1-W2 color index (1)
48- 51 F4.2 mas/yr pm [0/0.19] Gaia DR3 total proper motion, µ
53- 56 F4.2 mas/yr e_pm [0.03/0.1] pm uncertainty
58- 63 F6.4 --- z [0.0897/2.486] AllBRICQS spectroscopic redshift;
this work
65- 70 F6.4 --- e_z [0.0001/0.01] z uncertainty
72- 76 F5.3 --- zQuaia [0.158/2.701]? Quaia redshift (2)
78- 82 F5.3 --- zCatN [0.152/3.135]? CatNorth redshift (3)
84- 87 F4.2 --- zOther [0.2/3.3]? Other redshift
89 A1 --- f_zOther Flag on zOther (4)
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Note (1): The W1-W2 color (W12) is derived from
CatWISE2020 (Marocco+ 2021, II/365) and supplemented with AllWISE data
(see II/328) when unavailable. Although the initial candidate
selection was based on AllWISE photometry, we report CatWISE values
here to reflect the intended selection method.
Note (2): Estimated redshifts from the Gaia-unWISE quasar candidate catalog
(Storey-Fisher+ 2024, J/ApJ/964/69), computed using a
k-nearest neighbors (KNN) model.
Note (3): Estimated redshifts from the improved Gaia DR3 quasar candidate
catalog (Fu+ 2024, J/ApJS/271/54).
Note (4): Flag as follows:
a = Gaia DR3 QSO candidates (Gaia Col. 2023, J/A+A/674/A41),
https://gea.esac.esa.int/archive
b = Bayesian high-redshift quasar classification
(Richards+ 2015, J/ApJS/219/39).
c = VizieR Online Data Catalog: Lick Northern Proper Motion: NPM1 Ref.
Galaxies (Klemola+ 1994, I/200).
d = Identification of 1.4 million AGN using WISE Data
(Secrest+ 2015, J/ApJS/221/12).
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table4.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1- 10 A10 --- Target Quasar identifier (JHHMM+DDMM)
12- 19 F8.4 deg RAdeg Right ascension (J2000)
21- 27 F7.4 deg DEdeg [20.9/86.7] Declination (J2000)
29- 34 F6.3 mag gmag [15.64/18.66] ZTF g-band AB magnitude
36- 40 F5.3 mag e_gmag [0.027/1.3] Uncertainty on the gmag
42- 47 F6.3 mag rmag [15.48/17.21] ZTF r-band AB magnitude
49- 53 F5.3 mag e_rmag [0.006/1] Uncertainty on the rmag
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table5.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 10 A10 --- Target Quasar identifier (JHHMM+DDMM)
12- 16 F5.2 [10-7W] logLbol [44.94/47.69] Log of bolometric luminosity
in erg/s
18- 22 F5.2 [10-7W] logL1450 [46.94/47.18]? Log of the 1450Å luminosity
in erg/s
24- 28 F5.2 [10-7W] logL3000 [45.98/47.01]? Log of the 3000Å luminosity
in erg/s
30- 34 F5.2 [10-7W] logL5100 [43.92/45.91]? Log of the 5100Å luminosity
in erg/s
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Byte-by-byte Description of file: table6.dat
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Bytes Format Units Label Explanations
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1- 10 A10 --- Target Quasar identifier (JHHMM+DDMM)
11 A1 --- --- [.]
12- 17 I6 --- Date Observation date (YYMMDD)
19- 26 F8.2 10-10m lambda [2301.58/11198.85] Wavelength; Angstroms
28- 37 A10 cW/m2/nm Flux [-7.8e+66/2.4e+66] Flux; erg/s/cm2/Angstroms
39- 47 A9 cW/m2/nm e_Flux [7.2e-20/3.4e+66] Uncertainty in Flux
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History:
From electronic version of the journal
(End) Prepared by [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 05-Nov-2025