34th Annual Report (2021-22)

21-cm and OH absorption along the lines- of-sight to these quasars is underway using MeerKAT. SALT survey of spatially resolved Ly - emission around radio bright quasars : Detailed investigations of the spatial distribution, kinematics, and excitation of α the gas traced by the extended Ly emission can provide vital clues on various feedback processes that drive star formation and AGN activities in high- z galaxies. IUCAA astronomers (Gitika Shukla, R. Srianand & Neeraj Gupta) and their international collaborators have used the SALT to perform long-slit spectroscopic α 19 RESEARCH HIGHLIGHTS FROM SALT Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is the largest optical telescope operating in the southern hemisphere at Sutherland, South Africa. IUCAA is one of the partner institution with ~6.5% (typically ~20 observing nights per year) share in this telescope. Astronomers from IUCAA use SALT mainly for spectroscopic studies. In the past couple of years they have carried out several systematic surveys using SALT. Here we summarise main research highlights of these surveys. SALT survey of MIR selected powerful radio bright AGN at 0<z<3.5: IUCAA astronomers (Neeraj Gupta & R. Srianand) and their international collaborators have carried out a systematic survey of high-z radio bright quasars using SALT and the Nordic Optical Telescope. The main aim of this survey is to identify dust unbiased sample of z>1.5 radio-loud quasars that can be used as the main targets of MeerKAT Absorption Line Survey (MALS). The targets were selected based on the radio flux at L- band beingmore than 200mJy and infrared colors consistent with them being at z>1.5. These selections ensured that high-z quasars were identified in a dust unbiased way.This survey has resulted in the identification of 250 new quasars (biggest sample till date for radio bright sources with a medial redshift of 1.8), 26 blazar candidates and 27 radio sources without optical counterparts. As expected, the sources in this sample are optically fainter and redder than the typical radio-selected quasars, and representative of fainter quasar population detected in optical surveys. About 20% of the sources in this sample are narrow-line AGN (NLAGN)-65% of these, at z < 0.5 are galaxies without strong nuclear emission, and 10% at z > 1.9, have emission line ratios similar to radio galaxies. The farthest NLAGN in this sample is M1513-2524 (z = 3.132), and the largest radio source (size ~330 kpc) is M0909- 3133 (z = 0.884). Despite representing the radio loudest quasars (median R = 3685), the Eddington ratios measured for these quasars are similar to the Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasars having lower R. Full catalog of this quasar sample with supplementary information regarding optical and radio properties are presented in a recent paper appeared in ApJ. Systematic search for HI