1 research outputs found
The FIRST-2MASS Red Quasar Survey II: An anomalously high fraction of LoBALs in searches for dust-reddened quasars
We present results on a survey to find extremely dust-reddened Type-1
Quasars. Combining the FIRST radio survey, the 2MASS Infrared Survey and the
Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we have selected a candidate list of 122 potential
red quasars. With more than 80% spectroscopically identified objects, well over
50% are classified as dust-reddened Type 1 quasars, whose reddenings (E(B-V))
range from approximately 0.1 to 1.5 magnitudes. They lie well off the color
selection windows usually used to detect quasars and many fall within the
stellar locus, which would have made it impossible to find these objects with
traditional color selection techniques. The reddenings found are much more
consistent with obscuration happening in the host galaxy rather than stemming
from the dust torus. We find an unusually high fraction of Broad Absorption
Line (BAL) quasars at high redshift, all but one of them belonging to the Low
Ionization BAL (LoBAL) class and many also showing absorption the metastable
FeII line (FeLoBAL). The discovery of further examples of dust-reddened LoBAL
quasars provides more support for the hypothesis that BAL quasars (at least
LoBAL quasars) represent an early stage in the lifetime of the quasar. The fact
that we see such a high fraction of BALs could indicate that the quasar is in a
young phase in which quasar feedback from the BAL winds is suppressing star
formation in the host galaxy.Comment: 17 pages, 7 figures, accepted for publication in Ap