QSOs selection from SDSS and WISE

Optical photometry is taken from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III: Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey (SDSS-III/BOSS), while mid-IR photometry comes from a combination of data from the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) "AllWISE" data release and several large-area Spitzer Space Telescope fields. Selection is based on a Bayesian kernel density algorithm with a training sample of 157701 spectroscopically confirmed type 1 quasars with both optical and mid-IR data.

Of the quasar candidates, 733713 lack spectroscopic confirmation (and 305623 are objects that we have not previously classified as photometric quasar candidates). These candidates include 7874 objects targeted as high-probability potential quasars with 3.5<z<5 (of which 6779 are new photometric candidates). Our algorithm is more complete to z>3.5 than the traditional mid-IR selection "wedges" and to 2.2<z<3.5 quasars than the SDSS-III/BOSS project.