QUASARS AS A TRACER OF LARGE-SCALE STRUCTURES IN THE DISTANT UNIVERSE

Abstract

ABSTRACT We study the dependence of the number density and properties of quasars on the background galaxy density using the currently largest spectroscopic data sets of quasars and galaxies. We construct a galaxy number density field smoothed over the variable smoothing scale of between approximately 10 and 20 h −1 Mpc over the redshift range 0.46 < z < 0.59 using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data Release 12 (DR12) Constant MASS galaxies. The quasar sample is prepared from the SDSS-I/II DR7. We examine the correlation of incidence of quasars with the large-scale background density and the dependence of quasar properties such as bolometric luminosity, black hole mass, and Eddington ratio on the large-scale density. We find a monotonic correlation between the quasar number density and large-scale galaxy number density, which is fitted well with a power-law relation, . We detect weak dependences of quasar properties on the large-scale density such as a positive correlation between black hole mass and density, and a negative correlation between luminosity and density. We discuss the possibility of using quasars as a tracer of large-scale structures at high redshifts, which may be useful for studies of the growth of structures in the high-redshift universe.