Sloan Digital Sky Survey Quasars in the Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic Survey (SWIRE) ELAIS N1 Field: Properties and Spectral Energy Distributions

Abstract

We present a mid-infrared (MIR) analysis of 35 quasars with spectroscopic redshifts selected from the Spitzer Wide-Area Infrared Extragalactic Survey (SWIRE). We discuss their optical and MIR colors and show that these quasars occupy well-defined regions in MIR color-color space. We examine the issue of type 1 active galactic nuclei candidate selection in detail and propose new selection methods based on MIR colors. The available multiband data allow us to construct two new, well-sampled quasar templates, covering wavelengths from the ultraviolet to the MIR. © 2005. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.