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[52.07] QSO Absorption Systems in the Early SDSS Spectra

D. York, S. Burles, E. Leibacher, D. Moore, G. Richards (U Chicago), A. Pope, A. Uomoto (Johns Hopkins), F.J. Castander (Toulouse), A. Merrelli (Caltech), R.C. Nichol (Carnegie Mellon), J. Brinkmann (APO), D. Schlegel, M. Strauss, R.H. Lupton (Princeton), R. Peterson, C. Stoughton, D. Vanden Berk, B. Yanny (FNAL), J. Loveday, M. Subbarao, J. Frieman (U Chicago), A. Connolly (U Pitt), D. Schneider (Penn State), A. Meiksen (Edinburgh), SDSS Collaboration

We present a subsample of QSO spectra obtained during the spectroscopic commissioning of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), with our attention focused on sensitivity limits and characteristics of detectable QSO absorption systems. These early SDSS spectra, at resolution of 2000 and continuous wavelength coverage from 3800 Åto 9200 Å, contain more than 800 QSOs which are suitable for studies of QSO absorption systems. We examine a subset of these spectra as a function of QSO properties (e.g. vs. redshift and magnitude) and absorption line identifications (e.g. vs. ion and redshift). Our results show that the SDSS spectroscopic system is well suited to the study of QSO absorbers, and the SDSS QSO data will be invaluable to all fields of absorption line work.