Serendipitous discovery of a brightening quasar at redshift z = 3.68

Fernando J. Selman*, Fuyan Bian, Israel Blanchard, Stephane Brillant, Lodovico Coccato, Stefano Cristiani, Pascale Hibon, Darshan Kakkad, Andrea Mehner, Sabine Moehler, Diego Parraguez, Claudia Reyes, Thomas Rivinius, Sergio Vera, Frédéric P.A. Vogt, Peter M. Weilbacher, Bin Yang

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

We report the serendipitous discovery of a redshift 3.68 quasar while validating the star WD 0308-565 as a spectrophotometric standard star for the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) calibration plan. Based on the MUSE observations, the luminosity of the quasar at 1350A (L1350) is 4.71 × 1045 erg s−1. The black hole mass is 2.5 × 109 Mʘ, and bolometric luminosity is 1.57 × 1047 erg s−1. Present in the field of view of a star in the calibration plan of the instrument makes this a very valuable quasar as it will receive many repeated visits in the coming years making it an ideal candidate for reverberation mapping studies.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)26-31
Number of pages6
JournalAstronomische Nachrichten
Volume341
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2020
Externally publishedYes

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