Title: Redshift distribution of Obscured and Unobscured Quasars
Author: S.E. Ridgway, M. Lacy, T. Urrutia, A. Petric, C. Harrison, A. Sajina, D. Farrah
Abstract: We have undertaken a spectroscopic survey of luminous AGN and quasars selected in the mid-infrared from Spitzer shallow surveys. Mid-infrared selection is much less biased with respect to obscuration than optical techniques, and hence enables the discovery of obscured quasars as well as normal, unobscured ones. Our survey therefore provides an unique opportunity to construct luminosity functions for both obscured and unobscured quasars selected in the same way and covering similar redshifts and luminosities. We have been using 4m class telescopes to obtain observations of the brighter 24 micron targets in the sample that are more thinly spread (targetting high luminosity objects at low z), and we have also obtained spectroscopy with Gemini and the MMT to find lower luminosity high redshift obscured quasars by targetting the fainter 24 micron targets. Here we will present current progress on the redshift distribution and luminosity function of this sample of type 1 & type 2 AGNs.