A Catalog of Post-starburst Quasars from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7

TL;DR

This paper introduces a catalog of 208 nearby post-starburst quasars identified from SDSS DR7, highlighting their intermediate-aged stellar populations and potential for studying black hole-galaxy co-evolution.

Contribution

The study provides the first large, carefully decomposed catalog of post-starburst quasars from SDSS data, emphasizing their spectral features and evolutionary significance.

Findings

Catalog of 208 PSQs with strong Hδ absorption

Identification of recent starburst activity within 1 Gyr

Potential for studying black hole and galaxy co-evolution

Abstract

We present a catalog of nearby (z $\leq$ 0.5) quasars with significant features of post-starburst stellar populations in their optical spectra, so-called post-starburst quasars, or PSQs. After carefully decomposing spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 7 (DR7) Quasar Catalog into quasar and host-galaxy components, we derive a sample of 208 PSQs. Their host-galaxy components have strong H\delta\ absorption ($\rm EW \geq 6 \AA$) indicating a significant contribution of an intermediate-aged stellar population formed in a burst of star formation within the past 1 Gyr, which makes them potentially useful for studying the co-evolution of supermassive black holes and their host galaxies.