Related papers: The Transverse Proximity Effect in Spectral Hardne…
We present the first characterization of the circumgalactic medium of Ly$\alpha$ emitters (LAEs), using a sample of 96 $z\approx3.3$ LAEs detected with the VLT/MUSE in fields centered on 8 bright background quasars. The LAEs have low…
We used 40 high resolution, high S/N QSO spectra at 2.1<z<4.7 to search for the signature of the proximity effect in the HI Lyalpha forest. Comparing the effective optical depth near each QSO with the expected one, we clearly detect the…
Observations of resolved HeII Lyman alpha absorption in spectra of two QSO's suggest that the epoch of helium ionization occurred at z~3. Proximity zones in the spectra of the quasars (z=3.18, 3.285) at 304 A resemble Stromgren spheres,…
Rapid intrinsic variability has been detected for the first time in the Einstein Cross QSO 2237+0305, a radio quiet flat spectrum quasar at z=1.7 that is quadruply lensed by a foreground galaxy at z=0.04. The observed short-period event at…
We report on the statistical analysis of quasar photoevaporation at $z\sim2.2$ by comparing the density of surrounding Ly$\alpha$ Emitters (LAEs) and continuum-selected galaxies, based on the imaging data of Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) Subaru…
The intense UV radiation from a highly luminous QSO should excite fluorescent Ly-alpha emission from any nearby neutral hydrogen clouds. We present a very deep narrow-band search for such emission near the z=2.168 quasar PKS 0424-131,…
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…
Spectra of the \ze~$=4.12$ quasar Q$0000-2619$ have been obtained in the range $\lambda\lambda = 4880-8115$ \AA~with a resolution of 13 \kms~and signal--to--noise ratio of $s/n=15-60$ per resolution element. The mode of the distribution of…
The low density hydrogen and helium in the IGM probed by QSO absorption lines is sensitive to the amplitude and spectral shape of the metagalactic UV background. We use realistic HI and HeII Ly-alpha forest spectra, constructed from…
In Paper III of our series "A Uniform Analysis of the Ly-alpha forest at z=0 - 5", we presented a set of 270 quasar spectra from the archives of the Faint Object Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. A total of 151 of these spectra,…
A toy model is developed to understand how the spatial distribution of fluorescent emitters in the vicinity of bright quasars could be affected by the geometry of the quasar bi-conical radiation field and by its lifetime. The model is then…
We present a new calculation of the intergalactic gamma-ray absorption coefficient as a function of both energy and redshift. In reexamining this problem, we make use of a new, empirically based calculation (as opposed to previous model…
The neutral hydrogen and the ionized helium absorption in the spectra of quasars are unique probes of structure in the early universe. We present Far-Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer observations of the line of sight to the quasar…
The scenario of the compressed mass spectrum between heavy quark and dark matter is a challenge for LHC searches. However, the elastic scattering cross section between dark matter and nuclei in dark matter direct detection experiments can…
The lifetime t_Q of the luminous phase of quasars is constrained by current observations to be between 10^6 and 10^8 years, but is otherwise unkown. We model the quasar luminosity function in detail in the optical and X-ray bands using the…
High-redshift quasars (z >~ 6) drive ionization fronts into the intergalactic medium (IGM). If the thickness of the front can be measured, it can provide a novel constraint on the ionizing spectral energy distribution (SED). Here we follow…
The X-ray luminosity function of distant (3<z<5.1) unabsorbed quasars has been measured. A sample of distant high-luminosity quasars ($10^{45} \leq L_{{\rm X},2-10} < 7.5 \times 10^{45}$ erg/s in the 2--10 keV energy band) from the catalog…
Galaxies hosting z~2 quasars are the high-$z$ progenitors of today's massive `red-and-dead' galaxies. With close pairs of quasars at different redshifts, a background quasar can be used to study a foreground quasar's halo gas in absorption,…
We present the results of the first long-term (2.2 years) spectroscopic monitoring of a gravitationally lensed quasar, namely the Einstein Cross Q2237+0305. The goal of this paper is to present the observational facts to be compared in…
We measure long (2200-4000 ang) and short (1450-2200 ang) wavelength spectral slopes \alpha (F_\nu proportional to \nu^\alpha) for quasar spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The long and short wavelength slopes are computed from 3646…