SPIDERS

Principal Investigators: Andrea Merloni and Kirpal Nandra (MPE).

The SPectroscopic IDentification of ERosita Sources (SPIDERS) survey will take spectra of 50,000 X-ray emitting quasars and X-ray cluster galaxies detected by eROSITA, a ground-breaking new X-ray telescope to be launched in 2014. Quasars emit copiously in X-rays, but some are obscured in visible light. This telescope combined with eBOSS follow-up will uncover this hidden population of obscured quasars. Because X-ray observations also allow robust measurements of black hole growth rates, eBOSS will provide the most complete measurements to date of the growth history of supermassive black holes. Meanwhile, SPIDERS observations of X-ray cluster galaxies will allow us to map the 3D distribution of these X-ray clusters — the most massive bound systems in the Universe, exceeding 10¹⁵ times the mass of our Sun, and key tracers of the growth of structure.

The combination of SPIDERS with the eBOSS large-scale structure sample of quasars, and the TDSS variability selected AGN sample, will create a unique window into the full population of quasars at all epochs to redshift z = 3.