AllBRICQS: The Discovery of Luminous Quasars in the Northern Hemisphere

TL;DR

This paper introduces the second catalog of bright quasars from the AllBRICQS survey, identifying 62 new luminous quasars in the Northern Hemisphere using WISE and Gaia data, with spectroscopic confirmation and redshift measurements.

Contribution

It presents a new catalog of 62 bright quasars, including the most luminous iron low-ionization broad absorption line quasars, based on optical and infrared survey data and spectroscopic observations.

Findings

62 new quasars identified and spectroscopically confirmed.

Quasars span redshifts 0.09 to 2.48 and luminosities up to 10^48 erg/s.

Discovery includes the most luminous iron low-ionization broad absorption line quasars.

Abstract

We present the second catalog of bright quasars from the All-sky BRIght, Complete Quasar Survey (AllBRICQS), focusing on spectroscopically observed quasars in the Northern Hemisphere with Galactic latitude $|b| > 10^\circ$. This catalog includes their spectral data, redshifts, and luminosities. AllBRICQS aims to identify the last remaining optically bright quasars using data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and Gaia all-sky survey Data Release 3 (DR3). AllBRICQS searches for quasars that are brighter than $B_P = 16.5$ or $R_P = 16$ mag in Gaia DR3, based on simple selection criteria. Here, we report 62 new AllBRICQS quasars spanning various types, which include typical broad emission line quasars and the most luminous iron low-ionization broad absorption line quasars discovered to date. Spectroscopic observations were conducted using the Long-Slit Spectrograph on the 1.8-meter telescope at Bohyunsan Optical Astronomy Observatory, YFOSC on the 2.4-meter telescope at Lijiang Observatory, and BFOSC on the 2.16-meter telescope at Xinglong Observatory. We applied flux calibration using ZTF broadband photometry to correct for attenuation due to intermittent thin clouds during the observations. Redshifts were determined using inverse-variance weighted cross-correlation methods. Our targets span the bolometric luminosity range of $44.9<\log \left( L_{\rm bol} / {\rm erg~s^{-1}} \right)<48.0$ at redshifts between 0.09 and 2.48. These confirmed AllBRICQS quasars provide a valuable resource for future research into quasar evolution, black holes, their environments, and their host galaxies across multiple wavelengths.