New Selection Criteria for Red and Obscured Quasars in Stripe 82, Poster 44

Most massive galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers. In order to thoroughly understand galaxy evolution, we study the evolution of their corresponding supermassive black holes. Supermassive black holes'... [ view full abstract ]

Most massive galaxies have supermassive black holes at their centers. In order to thoroughly understand galaxy evolution, we study the evolution of their corresponding supermassive black holes. Supermassive black holes' gravitational potential pulls in and excites the gas in their vicinities, causing the gas to emit radiation that we detect as quasars. By studying the evolution of a quasar we indirectly learn about the evolution of the black hole at its center.
Our research concerns the ''teenage years'' of quasars which are obscured by dust. Newly formed quasars often have dust particles around them that absorb and scatter some of the blue light emitted, effectively ''reddening'' the image of the quasar. In our research we utilize new selection criteria for dust-reddened quasars by studying objects in the infrared region. We consider heavily obscured, but luminous quasars using infrared selection from Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). After obtaining data from NASA's infrared telescope (IRTF), we generate an emission spectrum for each quasar, calculate redshifts, use Gaussian fitting to approximate fluxes of emission peaks, and plot BPT diagrams. We determine from our BPT diagrams that 6 out of the 8 sources we select are quasars using new selection techniques.