A Spectroscopic Survey of WISE-selected Obscured Quasars with the
  Southern African Large Telescope
  We present the results of an optical spectroscopic survey of a sample of 40
candidate obscured quasars identified on the basis of their mid-infrared
emission detected by the Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). Optical
spectra for this survey were obtained using the Robert Stobie Spectrograph
(RSS) on the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT). Our sample was selected
with WISE colors characteristic of AGNs, as well as red optical to mid-IR
colors indicating that the optical/UV AGN continuum is obscured by dust. We
obtain secure redshifts for the majority of the objects that comprise our
sample (35/40), and find that sources that are bright in the WISE W4 (22$\mu$m)
band are typically at moderate redshift (<z> = 0.35$) while sources fainter in
W4 are at higher redshifts (<z> = 0.73$). The majority of the sources have
narrow emission lines, with optical colors and emission line ratios of our
WISE-selected sources that are consistent with the locus of AGN on the
rest-frame $g-z$ color vs. [NeIII]$\lambda$3869 /
[OII]$\lambda\lambda$3726+3729 line ratio diagnostic diagram. We also use
empirical AGN and galaxy templates to model the spectral energy distributions
(SEDs) for the objects in our sample, and find that while there is significant
variation in the observed SEDs for these objects, the majority require a strong
AGN component. Finally, we use the results from our analysis of the optical
spectra and the SEDs to compare our selection criteria to alternate criteria
presented in the literature. These results verify the efficacy of selecting
luminous obscured AGNs based on their WISE colors.
