English

What does Civ{\lambda}1549 tell us about the physical driver of the Eigenvector Quasar Sequence?

Astrophysics of Galaxies 2018-01-10 v1

Abstract

Broad emission lines in quasars enable us to "resolve" structure and kinematics of the broad line emitting region (BLR) thought to in- volve an accretion disk feeding a supermassive black hole. Interpretation of broad line measures within the 4DE1 formalism simplifies the apparent confusion among such data by contrasting and unifying properties of so-called high and low accreting Population A and B sources. H{\beta} serves as an estimator of black hole mass, Eddington ratio and source rest frame, the latter a valuable input for Civ{\lambda}1549 studies which allow us to isolate the blueshifted wind component. Optical and HST-UV spectra yield H{\beta} and Civ{\lambda}1549 spectra for low-luminosity sources while VLT-ISAAC and FORS and TNG-LRS provide spectra for high Luminosity sources. New high S/N data for Civ in high-luminosity quasars are presented here for comparison with the other previously published data. Comparison of H{\beta} and Civ{\lambda}1549 profile widths/shifts indicates that much of the emission from the two lines arise in regions with different structure and kinematics. Covering a wide range of luminosity and redshift shows evidence for a correlation between Civ{\lambda}1549 blueshift and source Eddington ratio, with a weaker trend with source luminosity (similar amplitude outflows are seen over 4 of the 5 dex luminosity range in our combined samples). At low luminosity (z < 0.7) only Population A sources show evidence for a significant outflow while at high luminosity the outflow signature begins to appear in Population B quasars as well.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.1708.03187,
  title  = {What does Civ{\lambda}1549 tell us about the physical driver of the Eigenvector Quasar Sequence?},
  author = {J. W. Sulentic and A. del Olmo and P. Marziani and M. A. Martínez-Carballo and M. D'Onofrio and D. Dultzin and J. Perea and M. L. Martínez-Aldama and C. A. Negrete and G. M. Stirpe and S. Zamfir},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1708.03187},
  year   = {2018}
}

Comments

18 pages, 11 figures

R2 v1 2026-06-22T21:11:39.377Z