The PAU Survey: The quasar UV and Ly$α$ luminosity functions at $2.7<z<5.3$
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2024
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| author | Torralba-Torregrosa, Alberto Renard, Pablo Spinoso, Daniele Arnalte-Mur, Pablo Gurung-López, Siddhartha Fernández-Soto, Alberto Gaztañaga, Enrique Navarro-Gironés, David Cai, Zheng Carretero, Jorge Castander, J. Francisco Eriksen, Martin Garcia-Bellido, Juan Hildebrandt, Hendrik Hoekstra, Henk Miquel, Ramon Sanchez, Eusebio Tallada-Crespí, Pau De Vicente, Juan Fernandez, Enrique |
| author_facet | Torralba-Torregrosa, Alberto Renard, Pablo Spinoso, Daniele Arnalte-Mur, Pablo Gurung-López, Siddhartha Fernández-Soto, Alberto Gaztañaga, Enrique Navarro-Gironés, David Cai, Zheng Carretero, Jorge Castander, J. Francisco Eriksen, Martin Garcia-Bellido, Juan Hildebrandt, Hendrik Hoekstra, Henk Miquel, Ramon Sanchez, Eusebio Tallada-Crespí, Pau De Vicente, Juan Fernandez, Enrique |
| contents | We present the Lyman-$α$ (Ly$α$) and ultraviolet (UV) luminosity function (LF), in bins of redshift, of quasars selected in the Physics of the Accelerating Universe Survey (PAUS). A sample of 915 objects was selected at $2.7<z<5.3$ within an effective area of $\sim 36$ deg$^2$ observed in 40 narrow-band filters (NB; FWHM $\sim 120$ Å). We cover the intermediate-bright luminosity regime of the LF $(10^{43.5}<(L_{{\rm Ly}α}/{\rm erg\,s}^{-1})<10^{45.5}$; $-29<M_{\rm UV}<-24)$. The continuous wavelength coverage of the PAUS NB set allows a very efficient target identification and precise redshift measurements. We show that our method is able to retrieve a fairly complete ($C\sim 85\%$) and pure ($P\sim 90\%$) sample of Ly$α$ emitting quasars for $L_{{\rm Ly}α}>10^{44}$ ${\rm erg\,s}$$^{-1}$. In order to obtain corrections for the LF estimation, and assess the accuracy of our selection method, we produced mock catalogs of $0<z<4.3$ quasars and galaxies that mimic our target population and their main contaminants. Our results show a clear evolution of the Ly$α$ and UV LFs, with a declining tendency in the number density of quasars towards increasing redshifts. In addition, the faint-end power-law slope of the Ly$α$ LF becomes steeper with redshift, suggesting that the number density of Ly$α$-bright quasars declines faster than that of fainter emitters. By integrating the Ly$α$ LF we find that the total Ly$α$ emitted by bright quasars per unit volume rapidly declines with increasing redshift, being sub-dominant to that of star-forming galaxies by several orders of magnitude by $z\sim 4$. Finally, we stack the NB pseudo-spectra of a visually selected "golden sample" of 591 quasars to obtain photometric composite SEDs in bins of redshift, enabling to measure the mean IGM absorption by the Lyman-$α$ forest as a function of redshift. |
| format | Preprint |
| id |
arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2407_19020 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The PAU Survey: The quasar UV and Ly$α$ luminosity functions at $2.7<z<5.3$ Torralba-Torregrosa, Alberto Renard, Pablo Spinoso, Daniele Arnalte-Mur, Pablo Gurung-López, Siddhartha Fernández-Soto, Alberto Gaztañaga, Enrique Navarro-Gironés, David Cai, Zheng Carretero, Jorge Castander, J. Francisco Eriksen, Martin Garcia-Bellido, Juan Hildebrandt, Hendrik Hoekstra, Henk Miquel, Ramon Sanchez, Eusebio Tallada-Crespí, Pau De Vicente, Juan Fernandez, Enrique Astrophysics of Galaxies We present the Lyman-$α$ (Ly$α$) and ultraviolet (UV) luminosity function (LF), in bins of redshift, of quasars selected in the Physics of the Accelerating Universe Survey (PAUS). A sample of 915 objects was selected at $2.7<z<5.3$ within an effective area of $\sim 36$ deg$^2$ observed in 40 narrow-band filters (NB; FWHM $\sim 120$ Å). We cover the intermediate-bright luminosity regime of the LF $(10^{43.5}<(L_{{\rm Ly}α}/{\rm erg\,s}^{-1})<10^{45.5}$; $-29<M_{\rm UV}<-24)$. The continuous wavelength coverage of the PAUS NB set allows a very efficient target identification and precise redshift measurements. We show that our method is able to retrieve a fairly complete ($C\sim 85\%$) and pure ($P\sim 90\%$) sample of Ly$α$ emitting quasars for $L_{{\rm Ly}α}>10^{44}$ ${\rm erg\,s}$$^{-1}$. In order to obtain corrections for the LF estimation, and assess the accuracy of our selection method, we produced mock catalogs of $0<z<4.3$ quasars and galaxies that mimic our target population and their main contaminants. Our results show a clear evolution of the Ly$α$ and UV LFs, with a declining tendency in the number density of quasars towards increasing redshifts. In addition, the faint-end power-law slope of the Ly$α$ LF becomes steeper with redshift, suggesting that the number density of Ly$α$-bright quasars declines faster than that of fainter emitters. By integrating the Ly$α$ LF we find that the total Ly$α$ emitted by bright quasars per unit volume rapidly declines with increasing redshift, being sub-dominant to that of star-forming galaxies by several orders of magnitude by $z\sim 4$. Finally, we stack the NB pseudo-spectra of a visually selected "golden sample" of 591 quasars to obtain photometric composite SEDs in bins of redshift, enabling to measure the mean IGM absorption by the Lyman-$α$ forest as a function of redshift. |
| title | The PAU Survey: The quasar UV and Ly$α$ luminosity functions at $2.7<z<5.3$ |
| topic | Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2407.19020 |