Quasar Spectrum Classification with PCA - II: Introduction of Five Classes, Artificial Quasar Spectrum, the Mean Flux Correction Factor dF,and the Identification of Emission Lines in the Ly alpha Forest

Details Quasar Spectrum Classification with PCA - II: Introduction of Five Classes, Artificial Quasar Spectrum, the Mean Flux Correction Factor dF,and the Identification of Emission Lines in the Ly alpha Forest Quasar Spectrum Classification with PCA - II: Introduction of Five Classes, Artificial Quasar Spectrum, the Mean Flux Correction Factor dF,and the Identification of Emission Lines in the Ly alpha Forest

2005-03-10

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0503248v1

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

29 pages, 11 figures. Submitted to ApJ

Scientific paper

We investigate the variety in quasar UV spectra (1020-1600A) with emphasis on the weak emission lines in the Ly alpha forest region using principal component analysis (PCA). This paper is a continuation of Suzuki et al. (2005, Paper I), but with a different approach. We use 50 smooth continuum fitted quasar spectra (0.14 < z < 1.04) taken by the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Faint Object Spectrograph. Three weak emission lines in the Ly alpha forest are identified as FeII 1070.95A, FeII+FeIII 1123.17A, and CIII* 1175.88A. Using first two standardized PCS coefficients, we introduce five classifications: Class Zero and Class I-IV. These classifications will guide us in finding the continuum level in the Ly alpha forest, and we discuss the characteristics of each class. We show weak emission lines in the Ly alpha forest become eminent for Class III and IV. By actively using PCS, we can generate artificial quasar spectra which are useful to test the detection of quasars, DLAs, and the continuum calibration. We provide 10,000 artificially generated spectra. We show that the power-law extrapolated continuum is inadequate to perform precise measurements of the mean flux in the Ly alpha forest because of the weak emission lines and the extended tails of Ly alpha and Ly beta/OVI emission lines. We introduce a correction factor dF such that the true mean flux can be related to that is measured by using power-law continuum extrapolation: = dF. The correction factor dF ranges from 0.84 to 1.05 with a mean of 0.947 and a standard deviation of 0.031 for our 50 quasars. This result means that we miss 5.3% of flux on average and we show that there are cases where we would miss 16% of flux using a power-law extrapolation.

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