The Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping Project:
  Post-Starburst Signatures in Quasar Host Galaxies at z < 1
  Quasar host galaxies are key for understanding the relation between galaxies
and the supermassive black holes (SMBHs) at their centers. We present a study
of 191 broad-line quasars and their host galaxies at z < 1, using high
signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) spectra produced by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
Reverberation Mapping project. Clear detection of stellar absorption lines
allows a reliable decomposition of the observed spectra into nuclear and host
components, using spectral models of quasar and stellar radiations as well as
emission lines from the interstellar medium. We estimate age, mass (M*), and
velocity dispersion (sigma*) of the host stars, the star formation rate (SFR),
quasar luminosity, and SMBH mass (Mbh), for each object. The quasars are
preferentially hosted by massive galaxies with M* ~ 10^{11} Msun characterized
by stellar ages around a billion years, which coincides with the transition
phase of normal galaxies from the blue cloud to the red sequence. The host
galaxies have relatively low SFRs and fall below the main sequence of
star-forming galaxies at similar redshifts. These facts suggest that the hosts
have experienced an episode of major star formation sometime in the past
billion years, which was subsequently quenched or suppressed. The derived Mbh -
sigma* and Mbh - M* relations agree with our past measurements and are
consistent with no evolution from the local Universe. The present analysis
demonstrates that reliable measurements of stellar properties of quasar host
galaxies are possible with high-SNR fiber spectra, which will be acquired in
large numbers with future powerful instruments such as the Subaru Prime Focus
Spectrograph.
