Related papers: Decoding quasars: gravitationally redshifted spect…
There is a growing consensus that the emergence of quasars at high redshifts is related to the onset of galaxy formation, suggesting that the detection of concentrations of gas accompanying such quasars should provide clues about the early…
We present the spectra, positions, and finding charts for 31 bright (R<19.3) colour-selected quasars covering the redshift range z=3.85-4.78, with 4 having redshifts z>4.5. The majority are in the southern sky (dec<-25 deg). The quasar…
Ionizing sources embedded in the neutral intergalactic medium (IGM) before cosmological reionization generate discrete HII regions. We show that a sufficiently bright quasar (for example, one tenth as luminous as that recently discovered by…
The early stage in the formation of a galaxy inevitably involves a spatially extended distribution of infalling, cold gas. If a central luminous quasar turned on during this phase, it would result in significant extended Lyman alpha…
High-redshift quasars typically have their redshift determined from rest-frame ultraviolet (UV) emission lines. However, these lines, and more specifically the prominent C IV $\lambda 1549$ emission line, are typically blueshifted yielding…
It is commonly accepted that quasar redshifts have a cosmological character and that most of the quasars are at Gigaparsec distances. However, there are some cases where several quasars with completely different redshifts and a nearby…
In this Letter we explore a version of the test of cosmological geometry proposed by Alcock and Paczynski (1979), using observations of the Lyman-alpha forest in the spectra of close quasar pairs. By comparing the correlations in absorption…
The quasar in the Hubble Deep Field South (HDFS), J2233-606 (z=2.23) has been exhaustively observed by ground based telescopes and by the STIS spectrograph on board the Hubble Space Telescope at low, medium and high resolution in the…
We present a new HST/STIS spectrum of the z=3.18 quasar PKS 1935-692 and summarize the spectral features shortwards of 304A in the rest frame likely to be caused by foreground HeII Lyman-alpha absorption. In accord with previous results on…
We present discovery spectra of a sample of eight lensed galaxies at high redshift, 3.7<z<5.2, selected by their red colors in the fields of four massive clusters: A1689, A2219, A2390, and AC114. Metal absorption lines are detected and…
We study the proximity effect in the Ly-a forest around high redshift quasars as a function of redshift and environment employing a set of 3D radiative transfer simulations. The analysis is based on dark matter only simulations at redshifts…
We present here new GHRS observations of Lyman-alpha absorption lines associated with groups or clusters toward the QSOs 1545+2101 and 0850+4400. In the first case we have identified at least eight distinct Lyman-alpha absorption features,…
Lyman alpha emission presents a means of identifying very high redshift galaxies, provided such objects can be reliably distinguished from foreground emission-line galaxies. Here we report on a program of imaging and spectroscopic studies…
We present the results of microlens ray-tracing simulations showing the effect of absorbing material between a source quasar and a lensing galaxy in a gravitational lens system. We find that, in addition to brightness fluctuations due to…
Recent detections of high-redshift absorption by both atomic hydrogen and molecular gas in the radio spectra of quasars have provided a powerful tool to measure possible temporal and spatial variations of physical `constants' in the…
High redshift quasars mark the locations where massive galaxies are rapidly being assembled and forming stars. There is growing evidence that quasar environments are metal-rich out to redshifts of at least five. The gas-phase metallicities…
In this paper we examine magnitudes of quasars as a function of redshift in different frequency ranges (u,g,r,i,z). We show that on the smoothed curves mag(Z) in frequency ranges u,g,r there are characteristic features both similar for all…
Molecules dominate the cooling function of neutral metal-poor gas at high density. Observation of molecules at high redshift is thus an important tool toward understanding the physical conditions prevailing in collapsing gas. Up to now,…
All galaxies once passed through a hyperluminous quasar phase powered by accretion onto a supermassive black hole. But because these episodes are brief, quasars are rare objects typically separated by cosmological distances. In a survey for…
We report the discovery of an unambiguous, substantial low-energy cutoff in the broad band X-ray spectrum of the radio quasar RXJ1028.6-0844 at a redshift of 4.276 obtained with the ASCA satellite, which we preferably explained as…