UV-bright quasars

Investigations of HeII Ly{alpha} (304{AA} rest-frame) absorption toward a half-dozen quasars at z~3-4 have demonstrated the great potential of helium studies of the intergalactic medium, but the current critically small sample size of clean sightlines for the HeII Gunn-Peterson test limits confidence in cosmological inferences, and a larger sample is required. Although the unobscured quasar sightlines to high redshift are extremely rare, the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR6 provides thousands of z>2.8 quasars.

We have cross-correlated these SDSS quasars with the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) GR2/GR3 to establish a catalog of 200 higher-confidence (~70% secure) cases of quasars at z=2.8-5.1 potentially having surviving far-UV (rest-frame) flux. We also catalog another 112 likely far-UV-bright quasars from GALEX cross-correlation with other (non-SDSS) quasar compilations. Reconnaissance UV prism observations with the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) of 24 of our SDSS/GALEX candidates confirm 12 as detected in the far-UV, with at least nine having flux extending to very near the HeII break; with refinements our success rate is even higher.