Related papers: A Sample of HeII $\lambda$4686 "Changing-Look" Qua…
We report the discovery of [NeV]3426 emission, in addition to HeII4686 emission, in six compact star-forming galaxies. These observations considerably increase the sample of eight such galaxies discovered earlier by our group. For four of…
Quasars acting as strong gravitational lenses offer a rare opportunity to probe the redshift evolution of scaling relations between supermassive black holes and their host galaxies, particularly the $M_{\mathrm{BH}}$--$M_{\mathrm{host}}$…
BL Lacertae (Lac) objects that are detected at very-high energies (VHE) are of fundamental importance to study multiple astrophysical processes, including the physics of jets, the properties of the extragalactic background light and the…
We discover the significant (significance level of >99%) correlations between the fractional variation of the ionizing continuum and that of the C IV and/or Si IV BALs in each of 21 BAL quasars that have at least five-epoch observations…
A strong X-ray outburst was detected in HE1136-2304 in 2014. Accompanying optical spectra revealed that the spectral type has changed from a nearly Seyfert 2 type (1.95), classified by spectra taken 10 and 20 years ago, to a Seyfert 1.5 in…
We present reverberation mapping results for the MgII 2800 A broad emission line in a sample of 193 quasars at 0.35<z<1.7 with photometric and spectroscopic monitoring observations from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Reverberation Mapping…
We present multi-epoch optical spectra of the $\gamma$-ray bright blazar 1156+295 (4C +29.45, Ton 599) obtained with the 4.3~m Lowell Discovery Telescope. During a multi-wavelength outburst in late 2017, when the $\gamma$-ray flux increased…
Aims. We have searched for temporal variations of narrow absorption lines in high resolution quasar spectra. A sample of 5 distant sources have been assembled, for which 2 spectra - VLT/UVES or Keck/HIRES - taken several years apart are…
We present new Gemini/GMOS optical spectroscopy of 16 extreme variability quasars (EVQs) that dimmed by more than 1.5 mag in the $g$ band between the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and the Dark Energy Survey (DES) epochs (separated by a…
We present echelle spectrophotometry of the Galactic H II region S 311. The data have been taken with the Very Large Telescope UVES echelle spectrograph in the 3100 to 10400 angstroms range. We have measured the intensities of 263 emission…
The only prominent line of singly ionized helium in the visible spectral range, helium-II 4686 A, is observed together with the helium-I 5015 A singlet and the helium-I 4471 A triplet line in solar prominences. The sodium emission, NaD2, is…
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II Supernova Survey has identified a large number of new transient sources in a 300 sq. deg. region along the celestial equator during its first two seasons of a three-season campaign. Multi-band (ugriz) light…
A deep narrow-band survey for Ly-alpha emission carried out on the VLT-FORS2 has revealed 98 Ly-alpha candidates down to a flux limit of 4.e-18 erg/s/cm^2 in a volume of 5500 comoving Mpc^3 at z=2.4 centered on the hyperluminous quasar…
We perform local excitation calculations to obtain line opacities and emissivity ratios and compare them with observed properties of H, He I, O I, Ca II, and Na I lines to determine the density, temperature, and photon ionization rate. We…
We present a high-cadence multi-epoch analysis of dramatic variability of three broad emission lines (MgII, H$\beta$, and H$\alpha$) in the spectra of the luminous quasar ($\lambda L_{\lambda}$(5100\r{A}) = $4.7 \times 10^{44}$ erg…
Absorption lines of H$_2$ and HD molecules observed at high redshift in the line of sight towards quasars are a test ground to search for variation of the proton-to-electron mass ratio $\mu$. For this purpose, results from astronomical…
We discuss the rest-frame optical emission line spectra of a large (~50) sample of z=3.1 Lyman alpha emitters (LAEs) whose physical properties suggest such sources are promising analogs of galaxies in the reionization era. Reliable Lyman…
Blazars, a highly variable Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) subclass, provide a unique opportunity to explore the physical processes within their relativistic jets and emission regions. In this study, we investigate the multiwavelength…
Quasars, as the most luminous persistent sources in the Universe, have broad applications for cosmological studies. In particular, they can be employed to directly measure the expansion history of the Universe, similarly to SNe Ia. The…
The recent discovery by Cantalupo et al. (2014) of the largest (~500 kpc) and luminous Ly-alpha nebula associated with the quasar UM287 (z=2.279) poses a great challenge to our current understanding of the astrophysics of the halos hosting…