Direct images have been obtained with the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope of a sample of low-redshift, high-luminosity, radio-quiet QSOs, whose redshift and luminosity distribution matches that of a radio-loud sample previously discussed. We present measures of the nuclear and host galaxy luminosities and colors, and a morphological discussion of the host galaxies. We compare five samples of radio-loud and radio-quiet QSOs from the same telescope which enable us to compare the effects of radio activity, redshift, nuclear luminosity, and detector quality on these properties. We find that radio-quiet QSOs reside in galaxies which are smaller, fainter, and redder than the host galaxies of radio-loud QSOs. These properties are generally consistent with the suggestion that radio-quiet QSOs live in spiral-type galaxies and radio-loud QSOs live in more elliptical-type galaxies. We find significantly less evidence for tidal interactions among the radio-quiet objects, although they appear to live in somewhat richer environments in terms of nearby companions. We present a general discussion of QSO host galaxy properties and puzzles.
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Hutchings et al. (1989) studied this question.