Sareh Eftekharzadeh (U. of Wyomin) -- Quasar clustering at intermediate and high redshifts

Abstract: We measure the clustering of over 92,000 quasars at redshifts 2.2 < z < 3.4 drawn from the final sample of the Baryonic Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (BOSS) which is by far the largest sample ever used to study quasar clustering at "intermediate" redshifts. We ameliorate the effect of observational systematics on our clustering analyses by weighting our control catalogues of random points by maps of how observational systematics correlate with the BOSS quasar target density. We find that there is no significant evolution in the quasar correlation length and bias over our studied redshift range, implying that the masses of the dark matter halos that host quasars decreases slightly from z~2.2 to z~3.4. Our result also contradicts a monotonic relation between the optical luminosity of quasars near redshift 2.5 and their host halo masses. To begin to study whether this contradiction holds for quasars' bolometric luminosity, we use data from the Wide-field Infra red Survey Explorer (WISE) to study whether the luminosity or detection of BOSS quasars in the mid-IR is correlated with the masses of quasars' host halos. We also use the first binary quasar discovered at z=5 to constrain quasar clustering at this redshift.