Ray, here's a possible catalog for your usage:

Quasar-galaxy associations (Bukhmastova, 2001)

Abstract:
A new catalog of 8382 close quasar-galaxy pairs is presented. The catalog was composed using published catalogued quasars and active galactic nuclei containing 11358 objects, as well as the LEDA catalog of galaxies, which contains on the order of 100000 objects.

I haven't looked closely at this catalog, but it seems to me that it would be suitable for a first glance of the situation. Or, at least you might get some sort of candidate object list from that catalog.

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Thank you Ari. It is wonderful that such a compilation exists. Clearly it has not been selected with my proposal in mind, so is ideal for the purpose of this test.

I almost forgot, here is the paper that describes the catalog.

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This is really interesting. It is going to take me a little while to digest that paper. But even if they are right about the cause, it shows that Arp was at least right about the probabilities and the need to investigate further.

One thing about the catalog that surprised me was the number of pairs that have both one quasar paired with many galaxies and one galaxy paired with many quasars. That requires some different statistical measures.

They had a cut-off of galaxy redshift at z=.004 I think. Not sure why they did that, but given that Arp says there are many associations with very close galaxies, it may be cutting out some of the most interesting part of the data for testing Arp.

It might make sense to clean those out of the catalog, or at least treat them as separate data sets.

(Actually, it's 0.0004.) I don't know if it was their reason, but there's one practical reason for doing that: galaxies with that low redshift tend to be very close to us, and hence the projected area with 150 kpc radius will be very large. That results in finding too much quasars (since there is always certain amount of quasars within certain area and larger area means more quasars within that area) around them and within the 150 kpc radius. So I think it makes sense to define a cut-off, and I would have probably set it even higher than that.

Edited to add: By the way, most objects that Arp has discussed have higher redshift than the 0.0004, so I think there shouldn't be much worries that most interesting data would be excluded.

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I looked at the paper more closely, and I think you must treat their data with suspicion. Here's why:

Table 2 in their paper gives an example of a case where there's multiple quasars near one galaxy. That's actually a good example of why I would set the z cut-off even higher, to eliminate these galaxies with dozens of quasars "near" them. I got interested of that case, and searched for the galaxy's data in NED. It turns out to be IC 1613, but look at the redshift, it's -0.0008 (negative value)! Seeing that, I thought that well, they used HyperLeda, so perhaps there's some redshift discrepancy between the two databases. But no, here's that galaxy's data in HyperLeda and it has similar z than in NED. So, it seems that at least in one case, they have ignored the minus sign in redshift value and included a case that shouldn't belong in their catalog. At minimum, this means that anyone wanting to use this catalog has to check the redshift data for the galaxies (at least the ones having z < 0.02 or something like that) and eliminate those that have negative redshifts.

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As it is potentially very relevant to this thread, I'm linking to a post I just made in my "quasar?" topic, in regards to a talk about the million quasars from SDSS.

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Yes, good point about the projected size for closer ones. Some of Arp's close ones are a modest distance away, but it is the symmetry on axis that makes them convincing also.
What is the biggest -ve redshift known? Wouldn't it be a bit less that .02? The paper points out that the values for galaxy redshift cluster at the two ends of the quasar light path (i.e. near the quasar and near us). They attribute this to lensing effects being more effective at those two places. However there are a lot more at the end near us than the other end. The ones at the other end can be dismissed from my sample because there is a real association proven for the galaxy and quasar and those quasars must be accepted as having accurate redshifts.

It is not desirable to lose too many at the other end as they are a similar configuration to Arp's examples. I think at the least I need to check all the galaxies that have many quasars near to them. There are a few (with the lowest redshifts of .0004 - thanks for the correction) that have dozens of matched quasars.

I did have a quick look at some aspects of the data. When I selected just the .0004 galaxies and did a graph of apparent magnitude versus z for the quasars it gave a reasonably tight scatter diagram with a rapid decrease in brightness at low z and a more gradual one at higher z. Then I did another selection form around z=.04 which had a similar shape but with dimmer magnitudes, but not nearly as much as the Arp model would predict.

So the obvious expectations of either model are not met. The sample does not behave as expected for either big bang or Arp model. However it might be explicable by the paper's lensing idea because I would think that the optical effects with the galaxy at a different distance might be to change the quasar brightness by a different amount (on average).

But anyway, these are not thorough results, just messing about to see how to cut the data up for graphing.

If the paper is right about the lensing, then am I correct in saying that it means that the observed brightness of all quasars are quite wrong as a measure of their true brightness? There is needed another factor that depends on the lensing and which we cannot easily estimate?

If all that is so, then doesn't it also mean that distant objects are actually dimmer than we think but also that there are actually a lot more of them?

And what are these "obvious" expectations?

How did you derive the (expected) behaviour of the sample for the big bang model?

Specifically, what input parameters did you use?

It is ~a week since this thread was started.

The OP contains the following statement:This statement is quite unambiguous; there are no tentative modifiers (e.g. "may"), no caveats, no qualifiers, etc.

Yet, so far in this thread, you have presented nothing that comes even close to a clear, quantitative description of the test that the OP is so certain about.

In fact, many questions have been asked about the quite vague, unquantified draft presented several days ago; questions that remain unanswered.

When may we expect to see some meat on this test that you assert "alone disproves the cosmological nature of quasar redshifts and totally undermines all the interpretations of the big bang" (no would's, no if's, no maybe's)?

This relates to the catalog Quasar-galaxy associations (Bukhmastova, 2001) and here is the paper that describes the catalog as mentioned by Ari Jokimaki.

This is the distribution by zG/zQ which tells us about the light path, particularly in relation to the proposal that quasars are lensed by some objects near the galaxy such as globular clusters.

... sorry can't format this as I intended ...

zG/zQ
No.of pairs in interval

.0001
5068
.001
1218
.002
974
.005
486
.01
305
.02
169
.05
62
.1
13
.2
10
.5
1
.8
5
.9
2
.95
8
.98
2
.99
5
.995
8
.998
5
.999
44
.9999


The number in any interval is closely related to both delta log(r) and delta log(1-r) (where r=zG/zQ) as well as another factor of r, which seems very reasonable for the optical proposal of the paper, but I have not attempted to work out the actual formula.

In quoting me you omitted this sentence.
It effectively says that the obvious big bang expectation PLUS the the idea that quasars are lensed by globular clusters or some other objects associated with galaxies does seem to fit the data.

It explains why quasars are found preferentially near galaxy axes as Arp has noted and why they have brightness that is so extremely high compared to galaxies. It would mean that they did have correct redshifts just wrong brightnesses. It would validate aspects of both big bang assumptions and Arp observations, but not Arp theory.

I described a test in Galaxy-Quasar associations as a test for alternative cosmologies
Additional information in Galaxy-Quasar associations as a test for alternative cosmologies

Just to explain further, the proposal stated that galaxy-quasar associations (with them at different redshifts) are considered by the big bang to be simply line of sight associations. In that case there should be no dependence of the quasar brightness on anything to do with the galaxy. However there is such an association (although not fully studied yet, just a quick glimpse).

So as the test was originally formulated the first quick look shows that both models are wrong as currently stated. However the lensing proposal allows a reconciliation between big bang ideas and Arp observations. It validates aspects of both and rejects aspects of both.

Big Bang Correct: Quasar redshifts.
Big Bang Wrong: Quasar brightness. (They are all lensed objects)
Arp Observations correct: Association of quasar locations with nearby galaxies. (They are lensed by globular clusters or some other things associated with the galaxy)
Arp Theory wrong: The quasars redshifts would be correct.

The implications of that paper are quite profound.

Gonna snip this right here ...

A word rather often used in this ATM section is 'strawman'; I think just about all readers are familiar with it, and what it means.

It would seem that much of what rtomes has presented as "considered by the big bang to be ...", so far in this thread, bears a striking resemblance to a strawman (or a series of strawmen/(strawpersons?)).

But, let's see what else is in the post ...(emphasis added).

And where, rtomes, may readers of this thread find a reasonably complete, accurate statement of what the 'big bang model' is?

For avoidance of doubt, please be sure to provide links to relevant papers, published in peer-reviewed journals, to demonstrate that 'the big bang model' you have used is, indeed, consistent with the present-day mainstream consensus. To research this, you may wish to take up the suggestion, made earlier by parejkoj (or someone else?) concerning the literature on quasar lensing ... If, after you've done that research, perhaps you'd consider re-stating what 'the big bang model' is?

And I asked >20 questions on that test, as described, here. I also stated "I have many, many other questions about the proposed test, but they will have to wait for at least some answers to the questions here."

Perhaps I missed it, but I did not see any response to any of those questions; if I did miss any such response, would you be kind enough to point me to the post(s) which contain them?

OTOH, if there have been essentially no responses to any of those questions, when may readers expect to them?

No. Wrong again. An increase in the number of quasars around galaxies is a prediction of standard cosmology. You've had this explained to you before. It isn't a large increase, and it isn't monotonic (in fact, it's quite complicated), and it only comes out when looking at a very large number of objects. There are a number of causes, which combine in a nonlinear fashion:

1. strong lensing (multiple images of the same quasar, and amplification of the quasar's light) due to galaxy clusters and massive galaxies almost directly along quasar sightlines.
2. weak lensing (shifting the on-sky position of the quasar and amplification of the quasar's light) due to galaxies clusters and massive galaxies in the vicinity of quasar sightlines. This can also increase the distance between the quasar and the lensing galaxy (notice I said not monotonic!).
3. microlensing (amplification of the quasar's light) due to "individual" objects in galaxies (stars, star clusters, etc.) passing directly along quasar sightlines.
4. the fact that quasars are in galaxies, and generally turn on during merger events, meaning there should be more AGN near the galaxies they are interacting with, as well as in clusters and cluster-precursors.

(Nereid: am I forgetting anything? The lensing effects are intertwined, but I think those are the four big contributors. I suppose, to be complete, I should also include absorption and reddening, which would cause a decrease in the cross-correlation...)

Here's one example from 1999 of the quasar/galaxy cross-correlation function (selected relatively randomly). Here's a more recent one, that you even brought up in a Q&A thread back in August, and you stopped posting to it after Nereid asked you if you wanted to work through some of the math. I suspect her offer is still open, if you were to ask very nicely.

But, again: your summary of the standard cosmological predictions are, again, incorrect.

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"What do you care what other people think?" -- Richard Feynman
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled." -- Feynman, at the conclusion of his Challenger report

The following is a partial analysis of results. The following steps were taken:

1. Remove n=80 cases where zG/zQ > .5 (all but one >.8 and mostly near .99) as these quasars are clearly at distances similar to a galaxy (similar redshift).

2. Remove n=7623 cases where zG<=.005 as the galaxies are so close that the area searched for quasars is too great.

3. Remove n=8 cases where obs-mag-Q was unknown as magnitude is part of the test.

4. Divide into zG ranges for simple analysis with groups starting at .005, .01, .02, .05, .1 and highest was .2154

These 5 groups were averaged to see if any trends were apparent:
(in CSV format)

n,zQ,obsmagQ,zG,kpc,zG/zQ

450,1.52,18.77,.0067,97.0,.0074
225,1.74,19.41,.0162,99.3,.0151
268,1.67,18.97,.0267,92.7,.0236
58,1.73,18.79,.0649,89.3,.0618
25,1.63,19.19,.1308,95.4,.1159

There is no obvious trend in the quasar z or magnitude. For the zG group that had lower z that was excluded there was probably some variation from this.

The average distance from galaxy of the quasar line of sight is always between 89 and 99 kpc (not surprising as selected at <150 kpc).

These results listed here are consistent with big bang expectations.

Other aspects not consistent with the normal big bang expectations are the concentration of cases where the galaxy is a little less than the quasar distance (80 to 99% of the way there) and possibly the variation of the lower redshift galaxy cases (z=.0004 vicinity).

All the data does support the proposal that all quasars are active galaxies at their true redshift that are being lensed by objects close to galaxies. Such a proposal also explains many other (all?) aspects of Arp's observations. Strange objects at anomalous redshifts connected to galaxies and in bridges. They are all actually distant objects being lensed by a real object that is connected with the galaxy. It also explains why quasar brightness has a poor relationship to distance - it is the amount of magnification of the lens varying.

The question is, what are the lensing objects? I will make another post about that.

If quasars are lensed objects, then what is doing the lensing?

First off it is useful to derive a formula that will be useful in considering the amount of lensing of an object depending on its mass, radius and distance.

Let B be the amount in radians by which light is bent by a mass M when the light passes at a distance R from the object. Then B=4GM/c^2/R as Einstein showed (have I got that right ... not sure about the 4). For light passing the sun at its surface this amounts to .0000086 radians or 1.75" of arc.

In the case of an object of radius R at a distance D acting as a gravitational lens of a much more distant object then R/D is the amount of bending that is required to achieve focus at the observer on Earth. So we may set R/D = B approximately but if the object is nearer to the thing being lensed this will be a wrong calculation.

R/D = 4GM/c^2/R or M = (c^2/4/G)*R^2/D

This gives a constant k=3.4*10^27 g/cm, and as Msun=2*10^33 g and 1 pc = 3.1*10^18 cm, we can make M in units of the Sun's mass and R and D in pc, with a constant 5.3*10^12 Msun/pc

M = 5.3*10^12 Msun/pc * R^2/D

For a typical globular cluster we might take M=10^6 suns and radius 20 pc. This will form a lens at distance D=2 gigaparsecs. It won't really do the job as observed for these quasar observations where the distance is smaller by a factor of nearly 1000. It either needs a lot more mass or a fair bit smaller smaller radius. Or some entirely different beast.

What about a white dwarf in a globular cluster? Well we don't really want its radius in pc, but take it as 10,000 km and mass 1.4 suns, and we get that a white dwarf can be a decent lens at a distance of less than 1 AU. So maybe something like that would work, but it needs an awfully accurate alignment. However there are probably quite a few white dwarfs in globular clusters of all the galaxies out there.