THE SLOAN DIGITAL SKY SURVEY QUASAR CATALOG. V. SEVENTH DATA RELEASE

Abstract

We present the fifth edition of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Quasar\nCatalog, which is based upon the SDSS Seventh Data Release. The catalog, which\ncontains 105,783 spectroscopically confirmed quasars, represents the conclusion\nof the SDSS-I and SDSS-II quasar survey. The catalog consists of the SDSS\nobjects that have luminosities larger than M_i = -22.0 (in a cosmology with H_0\n= 70 km/s/Mpc Omega_M = 0.3, and Omega_Lambda = 0.7) have at least one emission\nline with FWHM larger than 1000 km/s or have interesting/complex absorption\nfeatures, are fainter than i > 15.0 and have highly reliable redshifts. The\ncatalog covers an area of 9380 deg^2. The quasar redshifts range from 0.065 to\n5.46, with a median value of 1.49; the catalog includes 1248 quasars at\nredshifts greater than four, of which 56 are at redshifts greater than five.\nThe catalog contains 9210 quasars with i < 18; slightly over half of the\nentries have i< 19. For each object the catalog presents positions accurate to\nbetter than 0.1" rms per coordinate, five-band (ugriz) CCD-based photometry\nwith typical accuracy of 0.03 mag, and information on the morphology and\nselection method. The catalog also contains radio, near-infrared, and X-ray\nemission properties of the quasars, when available, from other large-area\nsurveys. The calibrated digital spectra cover the wavelength region 3800-9200\nAng. at a spectral resolution R = 2000 the spectra can be retrieved from the\nSDSS public database using the information provided in the catalog. Over 96% of\nthe objects in the catalog were discovered by the SDSS. We also include a\nsupplemental list of an additional 207 quasars with SDSS spectra whose archive\nphotometric information is incomplete.\n