NOAO >   Observing Info >   Approved Programs >   2010B-0050

# Proposal Information for 2010B-0050

Address: Department of Astronomy, 1002 W. Green Street, Urbana, IL 61801, United States

CoI: Joseph Hennawi, Max-Planck Institut fur Astronomie

Title: The Evolution of Small-Scale Quasar Clustering out to z~4.5

Abstract: Quasars are now invoked to explain many cosmological phenomena relevant to galaxy evolution. The key observational constraints that underlie cosmological models of quasars are clustering and the quasar luminosity function (QLF). Current observations fall short, however, as many different models now predict clustering and the QLF. This means that, although models of quasar cosmology are physically different, they are currently \em phenomenologically equivalent. Unfortunately, resolving this equivalence through new observations of quasar clustering (on large scales) and the QLF will require extensive surveys over many years. One physically informative observation, which can be made in the short-term, is the evolution of quasar clustering out to z <=sim 4.5 on scales of < a few hundred kiloparsecs. We have recently developed a new set of algorithms that can target pairs of quasars on these scales (so-called binary quasars") out to z <=sim 4.5. We propose using 4 nights of long-slit observations on the Hale 200-inch Telescope with the Double Spectrograph to compile an extensive set of binary quasars from z~0.5 to z~4 with which to newly test models of quasars as a cosmological population.

National Optical Astronomy Observatory, 950 North Cherry Avenue, P.O. Box 26732, Tucson, Arizona 85726, Phone: (520) 318-8000, Fax: (520) 318-8360

 NOAO >   Observing Info >   Approved Programs >   2010B-0050