The Active Galactic Nuclei in the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment Survey (HETDEX). I. Sample Selection

August 2022 • 2022ApJS..261...24L

Authors • Liu, Chenxu • Gebhardt, Karl • Cooper, Erin Mentuch • Davis, Dustin • Schneider, Donald P. • Ciardullo, Robin • Farrow, Daniel J. • Finkelstein, Steven L. • Gronwall, Caryl • Guo, Yuchen • Hill, Gary J. • House, Lindsay • Jeong, Donghui • Jogee, Shardha • Kollatschny, Wolfram • Krumpe, Mirko • Landriau, Martin • Chavez Ortiz, Oscar A. • Zhang, Yechi • HETDEX Collaboration

Abstract • We present the first active galactic nuclei (AGN) catalog of the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment Survey (HETDEX) observed between 2017 January and 2020 June. HETDEX is an ongoing spectroscopic survey (3500-5500 Å) with no target preselection based on magnitudes, colors or morphologies, enabling us to select AGN based solely on their spectral features. Both luminous quasars and low-luminosity Seyferts are found in our catalog. AGN candidates are selected with at least two significant AGN emission lines, such as the Lyα and C IV λ1549 line pair, or with a single broad emission line with FWHM > 1000 km s^-1. Each source is further confirmed by visual inspections. This catalog contains 5322 AGN, covering an effective sky coverage of 30.61 deg². A total of 3733 of these AGN have secure redshifts, and we provide redshift estimates for the remaining 1589 single broad-line AGN with no crossmatched spectral redshifts from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 14 of QSOs. The redshift range of the AGN catalog is 0.25 < z < 4.32, with a median of z = 2.1. The bolometric luminosity range is 10⁹-10¹⁴ L _⊙ with a median of 10¹² L _⊙. The median r-band magnitude of our AGN catalog is 21.6 mag, with 34% having r > 22.5, and 2.6% reaching the detection limit at r ~ 26 mag of the deepest imaging surveys we searched. We also provide a composite spectrum of the AGN sample covering 700-4400 Å.

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Yechi Zhang

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