Related papers: Microlensing of Broad Absorption Line Quasars
Optical and X-ray observations of strongly gravitationally lensed quasars (especially when four separate images of the quasar are produced) determine not only the amount of matter in the lensing galaxy but also how much is in a smooth…
Using infrared spectra of the z = 1.693 quadruply lensed quasar HE0435-1223 acquired in 2009 with the spectrograph SINFONI at the ESO Very Large Telescope, we have detected a clear microlensing effect in images A and D. While microlensing…
The ultraviolet broad absorption lines have been seen in the spectra of quasars at high redshift, and are generally considered to be caused by outflows with velocities from thousands kilometers per second to one tenth of the speed of light.…
Cosmological gravitational microlensing is a useful technique for understanding the structure of the inner parts of a quasar, especially the accretion disk and the central supermassive black hole. So far, most of the cosmological…
Many gravitationally lensed quasars exhibit flux ratio "anomalies" that cannot be explained under the hypothesis that the lensing potential is smooth on scales smaller than one kpc. Micro-lensing by stars is a natural source of granularity…
Molecular absorption lines measured along the line of sight of distant quasars are important probes of the gas evolution in galaxies as a function of redshift. A review is made of the handful of molecular absorbing systems studied so far,…
In this paper we show that to explain the observed distribution of amplitudes in a large sample of quasar lightcurves, a significant contribution from microlensing is required. This implies the existence of a cosmologically distributed…
Time variability of astronomical sources provides crude information on their typical size and on the implied physical mechanisms. PKS1830-211 is a remarkable radio-bright lensed quasar with a foreground molecular absorber at z=0.89.…
Broad absorption line (BAL) quasars serve as critical probes for understanding active galactic nucleus (AGN) outflows, black hole accretion, and cosmic evolution. To address the limitations of manual classification in large-scale…
We investigate the variability of the continuum and broad lines in QSO spectra (particularly in the H$\beta$ line and continuum at $\lambda$ 5100 \AA ) caused by microlensing of a diffuse massive structure (like an open star cluster). We…
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 report the discovery of a Broad Absorption Line (BAL) of \sim 10^4 km s-1 in width in the previously known BL Lac object PKS 0138-097, which we tentatively identified as a Mg II BAL. This is the first detection of a BAL, which is…
Recent works showed that the absorbing material in broad absorption line (BAL) quasars is optically thick to major resonant absorption lines. This material may contribute significantly to the polarization in the absorption lines. In this…
Here we give a brief overview of some investigations of the gravitational microlensing influence on broad absorption spectral lines of lensed QSOs. Especially, we consider the microlensing influence on the Fe K$\alpha$ broad absorption…
The quadruply lensed quasar HE0435-1223 shows a clear microlensing effect that affects differently the blue and red wings of the H$\alpha$ line profile in its image D. To interpret these observations, and constrain the broad emission line…
The micro-arcsecond scale structure of the seemingly point-like images in lensed quasars, though unobservable, is nevertheless much studied theoretically, because it affects the observable (or macro) brightness, and through that provides…
The time delays of gravitationally lensed quasars are generally believed to be unique numbers whose measurement is limited only by the quality of the light curves and the models for the contaminating contribution of gravitational…
We investigate the discrepancy between the predicted size of accretion disks (ADs) in quasars and the observed sizes as deduced from gravitational microlensing studies. Specifically, we aim to understand whether the discrepancy is due to an…
We review recent results on quasars from the SDSS as they relate to our understanding of the UV/optical continuum, the broad emission line region, and the broad absorption line region. The ensemble average colors of large numbers of quasars…
Associated absorption lines (AALs) in quasar spectra are valuable probes of the gas kinematics and physical conditions in quasar environments. The host galaxies are by definition in an active evolution stage that might involve large-scale…