DESI z >~ 5 Quasar Survey. I. A First Sample of 400 New Quasars at z ~ 4.7-6.6
Jinyi Yang, Xiaohui Fan, Ansh Gupta, Adam Myers, Nathalie, Palanque-Delabrouille, Feige Wang, Christophe Y\`eche, Jessica Nicole, Aguilar, Steven Ahlen, David Alexander, David Brooks, Kyle Dawson, Axel de la, Macorra, Arjun Dey, Govinda Dhungana, Kevin Fanning

TL;DR
This paper presents the first results from the DESI z >~ 5 quasar survey, discovering over 400 new high-redshift quasars and enabling diverse astrophysical studies of the early universe.
Contribution
It introduces a systematic method for identifying high-redshift quasars using DESI data, resulting in a significant increase in known quasars at z > 5.
Findings
Over 400 new quasars at z ~ 4.7-6.6 discovered
220 quasars at z >= 5 identified, over one-third of known at this redshift
23% success rate in identifying high-redshift quasars from the sample
Abstract
We report the first results of a high-redshift ( >~ 5) quasar survey using the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument (DESI). As a DESI secondary target program, this survey is designed to carry out a systematic search and investigation of quasars at >~ 5, up to redshift 6.8. The target selection is based on the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys (the Legacy Surveys) DR9 photometry, combined with the Pan-STARRS1 data and -band photometry from public surveys. A first quasar sample has been constructed from the DESI Survey Validation 3 (SV3) and first-year observations until May 2022. This sample includes more than 400 new quasars at redshift 4.7 <= < 6.6, down to 21.5 magnitude in the band, discovered from 35% of the entire target sample. Remarkably, there are 220 new quasars identified at >= 5, more than one third of existing quasars previously published at this redshift.…
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