A Catalog of Quasar Properties from Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16

Abstract

We present a catalog of continuum and emission-line properties for 750,414 broad-line quasars included in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 16 quasar catalog (DR16Q), measured from optical spectroscopy. These quasars cover broad ranges in redshift (0.1 ≲ z ≲ 6) and luminosity (44 ≲ log( L bol /erg s −1 ) ≲ 48), and probe lower luminosities than an earlier compilation of SDSS DR7 quasars. Derived physical quantities such as single-epoch virial black hole masses and bolometric luminosities are also included in this catalog. We present improved systemic redshifts and realistic redshift uncertainties for DR16Q quasars using the measured line peaks and correcting for velocity shifts of various lines with respect to the systemic velocity. About 1%, 1.4%, and 11% of the original DR16Q redshifts deviate from the systemic redshifts by ∣Δ V ∣ > 1500 km s −1 , ∣Δ V ∣ ∈ [1000, 1500] km s −1 , and ∣Δ V ∣ ∈ [500, 1000] km s −1 , respectively; about 1900 DR16Q redshifts were catastrophically wrong (∣Δ V ∣ > 10,000 km s −1 ). We demonstrate the utility of this data product in quantifying the spectral diversity and correlations among physical properties of quasars with large statistical samples.