Logo image
An Empirical Algorithm for Broad-band Photometric Redshifts of Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Journal article   Open access

An Empirical Algorithm for Broad-band Photometric Redshifts of Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

Michael A Weinstein, Gordon T Richards, Donald P Schneider, Joshua D Younger, Michael A Strauss, Patrick B Hall, Tamas Budavari, James E Gunn, Donald G York and J Brinkmann
arXiv.org
26 Aug 2004
url
http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.317.696View
url
https://doi.org/10.1086/425355View
Published, Version of Record (VoR) Open

Abstract

Physics - Astrophysics of Galaxies Physics - Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Physics - Earth and Planetary Astrophysics Physics - High Energy Astrophysical Phenomena Physics - Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics Physics - Solar and Stellar Astrophysics
Astrophys.J.Suppl. 155 (2004) 243-256 We present an empirical algorithm for obtaining photometric redshifts of quasars using 5-band Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) photometry. Our algorithm generates an empirical model of the quasar color-redshift relation, compares the colors of a quasar candidate with this model, and calculates possible photometric redshifts. Using the 3814 quasars of the SDSS Early Data Release Quasar Catalog to generate a median color-redshift relation as a function of redshift we find that, for this same sample, 83% of our predicted redshifts are correct to within |Delta z|<0.3. The algorithm also determines the probability that the redshift is correct, allowing for even more robust photometric redshift determination for smaller, more restricted samples. We apply this technique to a set of 8740 quasar candidates selected by the final version of the SDSS quasar-selection algorithm. The photometric redshifts assigned to non-quasars are restricted to a few well-defined values. In addition, 90% of the objects with spectra that have photometric redshifts between 0.8 and 2.2 are quasars with accurate (|Delta z|<0.3) photometric redshifts. Many of these quasars lie in a single region of color space; judicious application of color-cuts can effectively select quasars with accurate photometric redshifts from the SDSS database. When the SDSS is complete, this technique will allow the determination of photometric redshifts for ~10^6 faint SDSS quasar candidates, enabling advances in our knowledge of the quasar luminosity function, gravitational lensing of quasars, and correlations among quasars and between galaxies.

Metrics

9 Record Views
80 citations in Scopus

Details

InCites Highlights

Data related to this publication, from InCites Benchmarking & Analytics tool:

Collaboration types
Domestic collaboration
Web of Science research areas
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Logo image