Related papers: The Ionizing Continuum of Quasars

Quasars are variable on timescales from days to years in UV/optical, and generally appear bluer while they brighten. The physics behind the variations in fluxes and colors remains unclear. Using SDSS g and r band photometric monitoring data…

Core-extremely red quasars (core-ERQ) have been proposed to represent an intermediate evolutionary phase in which a heavily obscured quasar is blowing out the circumnuclear interstellar medium with very energetic outflows prior to becoming…

We study the optical light curves - primarily probing the variable emission from the accretion disk - of ~ 900 extreme variability quasars (EVQs, with maximum flux variations more than 1 mag) over an observed-frame baseline of ~ 16 years…

We explore the effects of UV absorbing material on the shape of the EUV continuum radiation emitted by the active galactic nucleus, and on the relative strengths of emission lines, formed in the narrow line regions of Seyfert galaxies,…

Quasi-simultaneous optical/near-IR photometry is presented for a sample of 37 luminous optically selected QSOs drawn from the Large Bright QSO Survey. Most of the QSOs have decreased in brightness since discovery; this is expected in…

We present high S/N UV spectra for eight quasars at $z\sim3$\ obtained with VLT/FORS. The spectra enable us to analyze in detail the strongest emission features in the rest-frame range 1400-2000 \AA\ of each source (\ciii, \siiii, \aliii,…

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 spectral energy distribution of quasars shows a sharp steepening of the continuum shortward of ~ 1100 A. We present a new dust extinction model consisting of crystalline carbon grains. We analyze the unusual extinction properties of…

Steep soft X-ray (0.1-2 keV) quasars share several unusual properties: narrow Balmer lines, strong FeII emission, large and fast X-ray variability, rather steep 2-10 keV spectrum. These intriguing objects have been suggested to be 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,…

We study the reionization scenario in which ionizing UV photons emitted from decaying particle, in addition to usual contributions from stars and quasars, ionize the universe. It is found that the scenario is consistent with both the first…

We present graphically the results of several thousand photoionization calculations of broad emission line clouds in quasars, spanning seven orders of magnitude in hydrogen ionizing flux and particle density. The equivalent widths of 42…

We report on a comprehensive X-ray spectral analysis of the nearby radio-quiet quasar MR 2251-178, based on the long-look (~ 400 ks) XMM-Newton observation carried out in November 2011. As the properties of the multiphase warm absorber…

The low frequency radio luminosity is believed to be an indicator of jet power, while the optical/UV emission is probably from accretion discs in the nuclei of steep-spectrum radio quasars. We present a correlation between the ratio of…

The correlation between the X-ray and UV luminosities observed in quasars, spanning a wide redshift range and holding true for several decades in both spectral bands, suggests the presence of a universal mechanism governing the transfer of…

The ultraviolet energy distribution of quasars shows a sharp steepening of the continuum shortward of 1000 A (rest-frame). We describe how we came to consider the possibility that this continuum break might be the result of absorption by…

Photoionization modeling of certain low-ionization broad absorption lines in quasars implies very compact (Delta R~0.01 pc), galaxy-scale (R kpc) absorbers blueshifted by several 1000 km s^-1. While these are likely signatures of quasar…

We constrain the quasar contribution to cosmic reionization based on our deep optical survey of z~6 quasars down to z_R=24.15 using Subaru/Suprime-Cam in three UKIDSS-DXS fields covering 6.5 deg^2. In Kashikawa et al. (2015), we select 17…

This paper presents results of a search for short-term variability in the optical band of selected high-luminosity, high-redshift radio-quiet quasars. Each quasar has been monitored typically for 2 - 4 hours with a time resolution of 2 - 5…

We report the results of deep H-alpha imaging of the ionized gas surrounding the low-redshift (z=0.0638) quasar MR 2251-178 using the TAURUS Tunable Filter (TTF) on the Anglo-Australian Telescope. Our observations reach a 2-sigma detection…