Related papers: Quasistellar Objects: Intervening Absorption Lines
We have monitored 12 intrinsic narrow absorption lines (NALs) in five quasars and seven mini-broad absorption lines (mini-BALs) in six quasars for a period of 4-12 years (1-3.5 years in the quasar rest-frame). We present the observational…
We present deep ground based imaging of the environments of five QSOs that contain sub-Damped Lyman-alpha systems at z<1 with the SOAR telescope and SOI camera. We detect a clear surplus of galaxies in these small fields, supporting the…
We provide an analytical description of the line broadening of HI absorbers in the Lyman-alpha forest resulting from Doppler broadening and Jeans smoothing. We demonstrate that our relation captures the dependence of the line-width on…
We discuss new Hubble Space Telescope spectroscopy of the radio-loud quasar, 3C 288.1. The data cover ~590 A to ~1610 A in the quasar rest frame. They reveal a wealth of associated absorption lines (AALs) with no accompanying Lyman-limit…
Radio-selected samples of quasars with complete optical identifications offer an ideal dataset with which to investigate dust bias associated with intervening absorption systems. Here, we review our work on the Complete Optical and Radio…
Understanding how the Universe evolved from diffuse primordial gas into the rich cosmic web we observe today is one of the great challenges of modern astrophysics. Quasar absorption lines - the imprints left by intervening gas on the light…
Quasars accreting matter at very high rates (known as extreme Population A [xA] or super-Eddington accreting massive black holes) provide a new class of distance indicators covering cosmic epochs from the present-day Universe up to less…
We establish a simple model for the distribution of cold gas around L* galaxies using a large set of observational constraints on the properties of strong MgII absorber systems. Our analysis suggests that the halos of L* galaxies are filled…
We present a new catalog of absprption-line systems identified in the quasar spectra. It contains data on 821 QSOs and 8558 absorption systems comprizing 16139 absorption lines with measured redshifts in the QSO spectra. The catalog…
A key to understanding quasar unification paradigms is the emission properties of broad absorption line quasars (BALQs). The fact that only a small fraction of quasar spectra exhibit deep absorption troughs blueward of the broad permitted…
The low-redshift evolution of the intergalactic medium is investigated using hydrodynamic cosmological simulations. The assumed cosmological model is a critical density cold dark matter universe. The imposed uniform background of ionizing…
We present spectroscopic observations for quasars Q0107-025A, Q0107-025B, and Q0107-0232. For the first time, all data obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope's GHRS and FOS for these three quasars are combined. Ly-alpha absorbers selected…
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…
The spectrum emitted by the Broad Emission Line Regions of Active Galactic Nuclei can measure the luminosity of the central object and the chemical composition of the interstellar medium in a very young galaxy, and so constrain the…
Spectropolarimetry of Broad Absorption Line Quasars (BALQSO's) has demonstrated that the geometry of the absorbing material is far from spherically symmetric. Calculations of accretion disk spectra suggest that the intrinsic radiation…
We investigate the metal species associated with the Ly$\alpha$ forest in the eBOSS quasar spectra. Metal absorption lines are revealed in the stacked spectra from cross-correlating the selected Ly$\alpha$ absorbers in the forest and the…
Quasar absorbers provide a powerful observational tool with which to probe both galaxies and the intergalactic medium up to high redshift. We present a study of the evolution of the column density distribution, f(N,z), and total neutral…
As one of the most luminous radio-loud quasars showing intrinsic ultraviolet (UV) and X-ray absorption, 3C 351 provides a laboratory for studying the kinematics and physical conditions of such ionized absorbers. We present an analysis of…
Observations of absorption systems in close, multiple lines of sight to gravitationally lensed QSOs can be used to infer the density fluctuations and motions of the gas clouds giving rise to the Lyman alpha forest phenomenon and to QSO…
We investigate the properties of the circumgalactic gas in the halo of quasar host galaxies from CIV absorption line systems. Optical spectroscopy of closely aligned pairs of quasars (projected distance \leq 200 kpc) obtained at the Gran…