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R.F. Green (KPNO), D.P. Schneider (Penn State), P.S. Osmer (Ohio State), D.E. Vanden Berk (Penn State)
The LSST, with its unprecedented combination of sky coverage, photometric and astrometric accuracy, sensitivity, broad wavelength coverage, and time sampling, will provide a new window into the nature of AGNs. Well-defined, large (> 107 objects) samples of AGNs at 0 < z < 6 can be constructed via three approaches: location in color-color space, variability, and lack of proper motion. The samples will allow determination of the AGN luminosity function down to Seyfert luminosities out to z ~ 4. The near-infrared wavelength coverage/high sensitivity of LSST enables detection of the population of red quasars, and the proper motion criteria will be particularly effective at separating z > 4 AGNs from brown dwarfs. The time baseline coupled with the sample size will produce a data set that can be used to address the physics of the AGN accretion process, including insights into the lifetime of AGNs.
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Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, 36 5
© 2004. The American Astronomical Society.