The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasar Catalog: Fourteenth data release^★

¹ Aix Marseille Univ, CNRS, LAM, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille, 13013 Marseille, France
e-mail: isabelle.paris@lam.fr
² Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, CNRS-UPMC, 98 bis boulevard Arago, 75014 Paris, France
e-mail: petitjean@iap.fr
³ APC, University of Paris Diderot, CNRS/IN2P3, CEA/IRFU, Observatoire de Paris, Sorbonne Paris Cité, France
⁴ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA
⁵ Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, 38205 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
⁶ Departamento de Astrofísica, Universidad de La Laguna (ULL), 38206 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain
⁷ Department of Astronomy, Box 351580, University of Washington, Seattle, WA 98195, USA
⁸ CEA, Centre de Saclay, IRFU, 91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France
⁹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, University of Utah, 115 S. 1400 E., Salt Lake City, UT 84112, USA
¹⁰ Center for Cosmology and Particle Physics, Department of Physics, New York University, 726 Broadway, Room 1005, New York, NY 10003, USA
¹¹ Apache Point Observatory, P.O. Box 59, Sunspot, NM 88349, USA
¹² Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, Eberly College of Science, The Pennsylvania State University, 525 Davey Laboratory, University Park, PA 16802, USA
¹³ Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
¹⁴ Department of Physics, The Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, USA
¹⁵ Max-Planck-Institut für Extraterrestrische Physik, Gießenbachstr. 1, 85748 Garching, Germany
¹⁶ Sorbonne Universités, Institut Lagrange de Paris (ILP), 98 bis boulevard Arago, 75014 Paris, France
¹⁷ Laboratoire de Physique Nucléaire et de Hautes Énergies, Université Pierre et Marie Curie, 4 Place Jussieu, 75005 Paris, France
¹⁸ Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden St., Cambridge, MA 02138, USA
¹⁹ Department of Physics and Astronomy, York University, 4700 Keele St., Toronto, ON M3J 1P3, Canada
²⁰ Institute of Physics, Laboratory of Astrophysics, École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL), Observatoire de Sauverny, 1290 Versoix, Switzerland
²¹ Space Telescope Science Institute, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore, MD 21218, USA
²² Steward Observatory, The University of Arizona, 933 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85721-0065, USA
²³ Institute of Cosmology & Gravitation, University of Portsmouth, Dennis Sciama Building, Portsmouth PO1 3FX, UK
²⁴ Center for Cosmology and AstroParticle Physics, The Ohio State University, 191 W. Woodruff Ave., Columbus, OH 43210, USA
²⁵ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Sejong University, Seoul 143-747, Korea
²⁶ Department of Physics and Astronomy, Ohio University, Clippinger Labs, Athens, OH 45701, USA
²⁷ School of Physics and Astronomy, University of St Andrews, North Haugh, St Andrews KY16 9SS, UK
²⁸ National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 North Cherry Avenue, Tucson, AZ 85719, USA
²⁹ National Astronomical Observatories, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 20A Datun Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100012, PR China

Received: 10 December 2017
Accepted: 14 January 2018

Abstract

We present the data release 14 Quasar catalog (DR14Q) from the extended Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (eBOSS) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV (SDSS-IV). This catalog includes all SDSS-IV/eBOSS objects that were spectroscopically targeted as quasar candidates and that are confirmed as quasars via a new automated procedure combined with a partial visual inspection of spectra, have luminosities M_i [z = 2] < −20.5 (in a Λ CDM cosmology with H₀ = 70 km s⁻¹ Mpc⁻¹, Ω _M =0.3, and Ω _Λ = 0.7), and either display at least one emission line with a full width at half maximum larger than 500 km s⁻¹ or, if not, have interesting/complex absorption features. The catalog also includes previously spectroscopically-confirmed quasars from SDSS-I, II, and III. The catalog contains 526 356 quasars (144 046 are new discoveries since the beginning of SDSS-IV) detected over 9376 deg² (2044 deg² having new spectroscopic data available) with robust identification and redshift measured by a combination of principal component eigenspectra. The catalog is estimated to have about 0.5% contamination. Redshifts are provided for the Mg II emission line. The catalog identifies 21 877 broad absorption line quasars and lists their characteristics. For each object, the catalog presents five-band (u, g, r, i, z) CCD-based photometry with typical accuracy of 0.03 mag. The catalog also contains X-ray, ultraviolet, near-infrared, and radio emission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area surveys. The calibrated digital spectra, covering the wavelength region 3610–10 140 Å at a spectral resolution in the range 1300 < R < 2500, can be retrieved from the SDSS Science Archiver Server.