HST Images of Nearby Luminous Quasars II: Results for Eight Quasars and Tests of the Detection Sensitivity

Abstract

HST observations of eight intrinsically luminous quasars with redshifts between $0.16$ and~$0.29$ are presented. Seven companion galaxies brighter than $M_V = -16.5$ lie within a projected distance of 25 kpc of the quasars; three of the companions are located closer than $3''$ (6 kpc projected distance) from the quasars, well within the volume that would be enclosed by a typical $L^*$ host galaxy. The observed association of quasars and companion galaxies is statistically significant and may be an important element in the luminous-quasar phenomenon. Evidence for candidate host galaxies is presented for the three most promising cases: PG 1116+215, 3C 273, and PG 1444+407, but additional observations are required before the characteristics of the candidate hosts can be regarded as established. Upper limits are placed on the visual-band brightnesses of representative galactic hosts for all of the quasars. These limits are established by placing galaxy images obtained with HST underneath the quasars and measuring at what faintness level the known galaxies are detected. On average, the HST spirals would have been detected if they were one magnitude fainter than $L^*$ or brighter and the early-type galaxies could have been detected down to a brightness level of about $L^*$, where $L^*$ is the Schechter characteristic luminosity of field galaxies.