High-Redshift, Radio-Loud Quasars

Abstract

I discuss two programs to study radio-loud quasars at high (z>4) redshift. Quasars are the most luminous, non-transient objects known and are observed to the earliest cosmic epochs. At lower redshifts, radio-loud quasars are associated with host galaxies having deVaucoleurs profiles. By association, identifying and studying a sample of high-redshift, radio-loud quasars provides important clues to the early Universe and potentially probes early-type galaxy formation. The first aspect of this proceeding discusses an extensive search for high-redshift, radio-loud quasars culled from matching the FIRST radio catalog with the 2nd generation Palomar Sky Survey. The second aspect of this proceeding concerns studying the radio properties of optically-selected z>4 quasars. At the time of this conference, only seven z>4 quasars were in the literature. The first program discussed herein uncovers three new such sources, while the second program identifies an additional five. We use the new samples to study the evolution of the radio-loud fraction, finding no evolution in this quantity between redshift z>2 and z>4 for -26>M(B)>-28.