%0 Generic %1 jiang2015discovery %A Jiang, Linhua %A McGreer, Ian D. %A Fan, Xiaohui %A Bian, Fuyan %A Cai, Zheng %A Clement, Benjamin %A Wang, Ran %A Fan, Zhou %D 2015 %K high-z qso selection %T Discovery of Eight z ~ 6 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Overlap Regions %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.01741 %X We present the discovery of eight quasars at z~6 identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) overlap regions. Individual SDSS imaging runs have some overlap with each other, leading to repeat observations over an area spanning >4000 deg^2 (more than 1/4 of the total footprint). These overlap regions provide a unique dataset that allows us to select high-redshift quasars more than 0.5 mag fainter in the z band than those found with the SDSS single-epoch data. Our quasar candidates were first selected as i-band dropout objects in the SDSS imaging database. We then carried out a series of follow-up observations in the optical and near-IR to improve photometry, remove contaminants, and identify quasars. The eight quasars reported here were discovered in a pilot study utilizing the overlap regions at high galactic latitude (|b|>30 deg). These quasars span a redshift range of 5.86<z<6.06 and a flux range of 19.3<z_AB<20.6 mag. Five of them are fainter than z_AB=20 mag, the typical magnitude limit of z~6 quasars used for the SDSS single-epoch images. In addition, we recover eight previously known quasars at z~6 that are located in the overlap regions. These results validate our procedure for selecting quasar candidates from the overlap regions and confirming them with follow-up observations, and provide guidance to a future systematic survey over all SDSS imaging regions with repeat observations.

@misc{jiang2015discovery, abstract = {We present the discovery of eight quasars at z~6 identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) overlap regions. Individual SDSS imaging runs have some overlap with each other, leading to repeat observations over an area spanning >4000 deg^2 (more than 1/4 of the total footprint). These overlap regions provide a unique dataset that allows us to select high-redshift quasars more than 0.5 mag fainter in the z band than those found with the SDSS single-epoch data. Our quasar candidates were first selected as i-band dropout objects in the SDSS imaging database. We then carried out a series of follow-up observations in the optical and near-IR to improve photometry, remove contaminants, and identify quasars. The eight quasars reported here were discovered in a pilot study utilizing the overlap regions at high galactic latitude (|b|>30 deg). These quasars span a redshift range of 5.86<z<6.06 and a flux range of 19.3<z_AB<20.6 mag. Five of them are fainter than z_AB=20 mag, the typical magnitude limit of z~6 quasars used for the SDSS single-epoch images. In addition, we recover eight previously known quasars at z~6 that are located in the overlap regions. These results validate our procedure for selecting quasar candidates from the overlap regions and confirming them with follow-up observations, and provide guidance to a future systematic survey over all SDSS imaging regions with repeat observations.}, added-at = {2015-04-09T09:59:21.000+0200}, author = {Jiang, Linhua and McGreer, Ian D. and Fan, Xiaohui and Bian, Fuyan and Cai, Zheng and Clement, Benjamin and Wang, Ran and Fan, Zhou}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/210d83369819ed478ba624b763d8679d6/miki}, description = {[1504.01741] Discovery of Eight z ~ 6 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Overlap Regions}, interhash = {5303546b27437ece12f7bab6b69ddc01}, intrahash = {10d83369819ed478ba624b763d8679d6}, keywords = {high-z qso selection}, note = {cite arxiv:1504.01741Comment: AJ in press (8 pages)}, timestamp = {2015-04-09T09:59:21.000+0200}, title = {Discovery of Eight z ~ 6 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Overlap Regions}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1504.01741}, year = 2015 }