Discovery of nine quasars behind the Large Magellanic Cloud Academic Article uri icon

abstract

  • We present the discovery of nine quasars behind the Large Magellanic Cloud, with emission redshifts ranging from 0.07 to 2.09. Six of them were identified as part of the systematic variability-based search for QSOs in the objects from the OGLE-II database. Combination of variability-based selection of candidates with the candidates' colours appears to be a powerful technique for identifying quasars, potentially reaching 50% efficiency. We report an apparent correlation between variability magnitude and variability timescale, which - if confirmed - could put even more constraints on QSO candidate selection. The remaining three quasars were identified via followup spectroscopy of optical counterparts to X-ray sources found serendipitously by the Chandra X-ray Observatory satellite. Even though the locations of the candidates were quite uniformly distributed over the LMC bar, the confirmed QSOs all appear near the bar's outskirts. ESO 2005.

published proceedings

  • ASTRONOMY & ASTROPHYSICS

author list (cited authors)

  • Dobrzycki, A., Eyer, L., Stanek, K. Z., & Macri, L. M.

citation count

  • 16

complete list of authors

  • Dobrzycki, A||Eyer, L||Stanek, KZ||Macri, LM

publication date

  • November 2005