AAS 197, January 2001
Session 13. Early Science from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Display, Monday, January 8, 2001, 9:30am-7:00pm, Exhibit Hall

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[13.04] Serendipitous Emission Lines in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey

S. Burles (FNAL), D. J. Eisenstein (U. Chicago), P. B. Hall, D. J. Schlegel (Princeton), SDSS Collaboration

We present a study of serendipitous emission lines detected in two subsamples of SDSS spectra. We search samples of sky spectra (N ~q 2000) and early-type galaxy spectra (N ~q 5000) for significant emission features (5 sigma limit of 5e-17 ergs/cm2/s) which cannot be attributed to the spectroscopic target. As the majority of discrepant candidates are likely [OII] 3727 (0.1 < z < 1) or Ly-a 1216 (2.2 < z < 4.5), we use measured line widths and profiles to distinguish between the two. Number counts and efficiencies are compared with previous studies, and the ``sky" sample is used to estimate the magnification bias introduced by early-type galaxies selected in the SDSS survey.


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