The Apparently normal galaxy hosts for two luminous quasars

Aug, 1995
29 pages
Published in:
  • Astrophys.J. 457 (1996) 557-564
e-Print:
Report number:
  • IASSNS-AST-95-33

Citations per year

199620002004200820120123456
Abstract: (arXiv)
HST images (with WFPC2) of PHL~909\ (z=0.171z = 0.171) and PG~0052++251\ (z=0.155z = 0.155) show that these luminous radio-quiet quasars each occur in an apparently normal host galaxy. The host galaxy of PHL~909 is an elliptical galaxy (\sim E4) and the host of PG~0052++251 is a spiral (\sim~Sb). Both host galaxies are several tenths of a magnitude brighter than LL^*, the characteristic Schechter luminosity of field galaxies. The images of PHL~909 and PG~0052++251, when compared with HST images of other objects in our sample of 20 luminous, small-redshift (z0.30z \leq 0.30) quasars, show that luminous quasars occur in a variety of environments. The local environments of the luminous quasars range from luminous ellipticals, to apparently normal host galaxies, to complex systems of interacting components, to faint (and as yet undetected) hosts. The bright HII regions of the host galaxy of PG~0052++251 provide an opportunity to measure directly the metallicity of the host of a luminous quasar, to establish an upper limit to the mass of the nuclear AGN (i.e., the putative black hole source), and to test stringently the cosmological hypothesisthat the galaxy and the quasar are both at the distance indicated by the quasar redshift.
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