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Detecting Quasars by Their Variability

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2010

Kasper B. Schmidt
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany Email: [email protected]
Hans-Walter Rix
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany Email: [email protected]
Sebastian Jester
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany Email: [email protected]
Phil Marshall
Affiliation:
Physics Department, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA
Gregory Dobler
Affiliation:
Center for Astrophysics, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
Joseph F. Hennawi
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Astronomy, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany Email: [email protected]
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We demonstrate that quantifying the intrinsic variability of quasars by fitting individual structure function data pairs with a 2-parameter power law model separates quasars from contaminating variable and non-variable point sources with a completeness of 93% and a purity of 99%. This approach can be used to select quasar samples in surveys like that being performed by Pan-STARRS1, where the usual color selection of quasars is not possible due to a filter system that is too red.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2010

References

Richards, G. T., et al. 2002, AJ, 123, 2945CrossRefGoogle Scholar