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An example of effective coverage maps (for the same regions) measured by HEALPix with three different starting resolution levels, Levels 9 (top panel), 10 (middle panel), and 11 (bottom panel). We use Level 10 as our starting resolution level (see the main text for the details).  

An example of effective coverage maps (for the same regions) measured by HEALPix with three different starting resolution levels, Levels 9 (top panel), 10 (middle panel), and 11 (bottom panel). We use Level 10 as our starting resolution level (see the main text for the details).  

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We present the discovery of nine quasars at $z\sim6$ identified in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging data. This completes our survey of $z\sim6$ quasars in the SDSS footprint. Our final sample consists of 52 quasars at $5.7<z\le6.4$, including 29 quasars with $z_{\rm AB}\le20$ mag selected from 11,240 deg$^2$ of the SDSS single-epoch imag...

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... have tried different starting resolution levels, and found that HEALPix Level 10 (i.e., the HEALPix base resolution is divided 10 times) is the best for the SDSS. Figure 5 shows an example that com- pares the results from three different starting resolution levels, Levels 9 (top panel), 10 (middle panel), and 11 (bottom panel). The added 'holes' from Level 9 to Level 10 are almost all real, primarily caused by missing data and very bright stars. ...
Context 2
... pixels in the second category (hereafter boundary pixels) are the close neighbors to the pixels in the first category, i.e., each boundary pixel has at least one neighboring pixel in the first category. The boundary pixels include outer boundaries and inner boundaries (the edges of the inner 'holes', see Figure 5). The third category contains all remaining pixels (here- after non-boundary pixels). ...

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... Over the last two decades of quasar research, ground-based surveys have unveiled the existence of a large population of luminous quasars at z ∼ 6; residing well within the epoch of reionization (EOR), these quasars have black hole masses 10 9 M e Wu et al. 2015;Bañados et al. 2016;Jiang et al. 2016;Wang et al. 2019b;Yang et al. 2019Yang et al. , 2021Fan et al. 2023). These rare quasars, powered by such massive black holes, require that the black holes must have grown to their current state in less than 1 Gyr after the Big Bang. ...
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... A comprehensive comparison can be found in [71], which demonstrated that differences are minimal so long as the window function is implemented properly. 6 It is unclear whether this factor should still be included when considering asymmetric probability distribution functions, as in the case of non-Gaussianities. We retain it nevertheless since this is an ultimately inconsequential O(1) effect. ...
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... where M 1450 is the absolute magnitude at 1450 Å, α and β are the faint end and bright end slopes, respectively, * M 1450 is the characteristic absolute magnitude or break magnitude measured at 1450 Å (assume no redshift evolution), and Φ * is the normalization of the luminosity function (LF). With high completeness quasar samples, the QLF has been measured at z ∼ 5 and extended to z = 6 across wide luminosity ranges of ( Willott et al. 2010;McGreer et al. 2013;Jiang et al. 2016;McGreer et al. 2018). Previous studies of SDSS quasars at z > 3.5 show that k = −0.47, ...
... However, the measurement of the QLF at z 5 remains highly uncertain because of the small sample sizes, especially at fainter magnitudes (e.g., Willott et al. 2010;McGreer et al. 2013;Venemans et al. 2013;Kashikawa et al. 2015;Venemans et al. 2015;Jiang et al. 2016; ) use a complete bright quasar samples at 6.4 < z < 6.9 and find k = −0.78 ± 0.18 at z = 6.0 −6.7, further strengthening the claim of a rapid declination in quasar spatial density from z = 3.0−5.0 to z > 6.0. ...
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About 70 luminous quasars discovered at z > 6.5 are strongly biased toward the bright end, thus not providing a comprehensive view of quasar abundance beyond the cosmic dawn. We present the predicted results of the Roman/Rubin high-redshift quasar survey, yielding 3 times more, 2–4 mag deeper quasar samples, probing high-redshift quasars across a broad range of luminosities, especially faint quasars at L bol ∼ 10 ¹⁰ L ⊙ or M 1450 ∼ −22, which are currently poorly explored. We include high- z quasars, galactic dwarfs, and low- z compact galaxies with similar colors as quasar candidates. We create mock catalogs based on population models to evaluate selection completeness and efficiency. We utilize the classical color dropout method in the z and Y bands to select primary quasar candidates, followed up with the Bayesian selection method to identify quasars. We show that overall selection completeness >80% and efficiency ∼10% at 6.5 < z < 9, with 180 quasars at z > 6.5, 20 at z > 7.5, and 2 at z > 8.5. The quasar yields depend sensitively on the assumed quasar luminosity shape and redshift evolution. Brown dwarf rejection through proper motion up to 50% can be made for stars brighter than 25 mag, low- z galaxies dominate at fainter magnitude. Our results show that Roman/Rubin are able to discover a statistical sample of the earliest and faintest quasars in the Universe. The new valuable data sets are worth follow-up studies with JWST and Extremely Large Telescopes to determine the quasar luminosity function faint end slope and constraint the supermassive black holes growth in the early Universe.