SDSS NBCKDE Catalog of Photometrically Selected Quasar Candidates

Cross-matching between this photometric catalog and spectroscopic quasar catalogs from both the SDSS and 2dF survey yields 88,879 spectroscopically confirmed quasars. For judicious selection of the most robust UV-excess sources (~500,000 objects in all), the efficiency is nearly 97 - more than sufficient for detailed statistical analyses. The catalog's completeness to type 1 (broad-line) quasars is expected to be no worse than 70%, with most missing objects occurring at z < 0.7 and 2.5 < z < 3.0.

In addition to classification information, the authors provide photometric redshift estimates (typically good to Delta(z) +/- 0.3 [2-sigma]) and cross-matching with radio, X-ray, and proper-motion catalogs. Finally, the authors have considered the catalog's utility for determining the optical luminosity function of quasars and are able to confirm the flattening of the bright-end slope of the quasar luminosity function at z ~ 4 as compared to z ~ 2.

Much more information on the SDSS is available at the project's web site at <a href="sdss.org/">http://www.sdss.org/</a>. This table was created by the HEASARC based on an electronic version of Table 1 in the reference paper which was obtained from the ApJ web site. This is a service provided by NASA HEASARC .