Low redshift quasars in the SDSS Stripe 82. The host galaxies
  We present a photometrical and morphological study of the properties of low
redshift (z < 0.5) quasars based on a large and homogeneous dataset of objects
derived from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (DR7). This study over number by a
factor about 5 any other previous study of QSO host galaxies at low redshift
undertaken either on ground or on space surveys. We used about 400 quasars that
were imaged in the SDSS Stripe82 that is up to 2 mag deeper than standard Sloan
images. For these quasars we undertake a study of the host galaxies and of
their environments. In this paper we report the results for the quasar hosts.
We are able to detect the host galaxy for more than 3/4 of the whole dataset
and characterise the properties of their hosts. We found that QSO hosts are
dominated by luminous galaxies of absolute magnitude M*-3 < M(R) < M*. For the
unresolved objects we computed a upper limit to the host luminosity. For each
well resolved quasar we are also able to characterise the morphology of the
host galaxy that turn out to be more complex than what found in previous
studies. QSO are hosted in a variety of galaxies from pure ellipticals to
complex/composite morphologies that combine spheroids, disk, lens and halo. The
black hole mass of the quasar, estimated from the spectral properties of the
nuclei, are poorly correlated with the total luminosity of the host galaxy.
However, taking into account only the bulge component we found a significant
correlation between the BH mass and the bulge luminosity of the host.
