Cosmological implication of the emission line redshift distribution of quasars

Abstract

The peaks and dips in the quasar redshift distribution seem to be incompatible with the cosmological principle. This lays the cosmological redshift hypothesis under suspicion and censure, and has been considered by some investigators as a manifestation of the intrinsic nature of quasar's redshift. So it is worthwhile studying whether the redshift distribution of quasars could be explained in the framework of cosmological redshift. As we know, this distribution is affected not only by the possible physical origin of redshift but also by the selection effects in the observations (Zhou, Deng, Zhou 1983). From this we have the redshift distribution function f(z) = P(z)R(z), where P(z) is the real distribution function which depends on the evolutionary properties of quasars and the space-time structure of the Universe, and R(z) is the factor caused by the selection effect in the line identification.