Examining Morphologies of Host Galaxies of Quasars using the Hyper-Suprime Cam

Abstract

This thesis is an expansion upon the research done by Yoshiki Matsuoka, Michael Strauss, Ted Price, and Matthew DiDonato in their 2013 paper on modeling host galaxies of quasars using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). Quasars are the brightest objects we can observe at high redshifts, and their properties and the morphologies of their host galaxies are therefore of particular interest. Because quasars extremely bright and typically outshine their host galaxies, it can be difficult to clearly perceive the light from the host, and therefore there is a need for telescopes and instruments with increased depth and better seeing, such as the Hyper-Suprime Cam (HSC).

I used a list of spectroscopically confirmed quasars from the SDSS and matched them to quasars in the field of view of the HSC. A preliminary calculation on 9,375 matched objects using the PSF and CModel magnitudes demonstrated color differences between the quasars and their respective host galaxies, as well as the apparent magnitudes of these host galaxies. I then performed a least-squares fit on 1,570 low-redshift (z < 1) quasars using the point spread function as a model for the quasar and the Sersic formula as a model for the host galaxy. Several of these models are explored in-depth.