相关论文: Partial Coverage and Time Variability of Narrow-Li…

Moderate resolution spectra have been recorded for a sample of radio-selected QSOs (z=2.5) discovered in the ``Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty centimeters'' (FIRST) VLA survey. This work is motivated by the study of a heterogeneous…

While amongst the most luminous objects in the universe, many details regarding the inner structure of quasars remain unknown. One such area is the mechanism promoting increased polarisation in the broad absorption line troughs of certain…

It has been known for 20 years that the absorbing gas in broad absorption line quasars does not completely cover the continuum emission region, and that partial covering must be accounted for to accurately measure the column density of the…

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…

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…

A new realist interpretation of quantum mechanics is introduced. Quantum systems are shown to have two kinds of properties: the usual ones described by values of quantum observables, which are called extrinsic, and those that can be…

The properties of circum-galactic gas in the halo of quasar host galaxies are investigated analyzing Mg II 2800 and C IV 1540 absorption-line systems along the line of sight close to quasars. We used optical spectroscopy of closely aligned…

We present HST/STIS and FUSE spectra of the quasar RXJ1230.8+0115 (V=14.4, z=0.117). In addition to Galactic, Virgo, and intervening absorption, this quasar is host to a remarkable intrinsic absorption complex. Four narrow absorption line…

We present the results from a time domain study of absorption lines detected in quasar spectra with repeat observations from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 (SDSS DR7). Beginning with over 4500 unique time separation baselines…

Strong absorption lines are common in rest-frame UV spectra of AGNs due to a variety of resonant transitions, for example the HI Lyman series lines (most notably Ly-alpha 1216) and high-ionization doublets like CIV 1549,1551. The lines are…

The physical nature of the material responsible for the high--velocity, broad-absorption line features seen in a small fraction of quasar spectra has been the subject of debate since their discovery. This has been especially compounded by…

There is growing evidence of a higher intrinsic fraction of broad absorption line quasars (BALQSOs) than that obtained in optical surveys, on which most previous X-ray studies of BALQSOs have focused. Here we present Chandra observations of…

Quasar spectra have a variety of absorption lines whose origins range from energetic winds expelled from the central engines to unrelated, intergalactic clouds. We present multi-epoch, medium resolution spectra of eight quasars at z~2 that…

A generic assumption of ionization models of quasar absorption systems is that radiation from local sources is negligible compared with the cosmological background. We test this assumption and find that it is unlikely to hold for absorbers…

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…

Radio monitoring of the gravitational lens system B0218+357 reveals it to be a highly variable source with variations on timescales of a few days correlated in both images. This shows that the variability is intrinsic to the background…

A key assumption in quasar absorption line studies of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) is that each absorption component maps to a spatially isolated "cloud" structure that has single valued properties (e.g. density, temperature,…

Intensive monitoring campaigns have recently attempted to measure the time delays between multiple images of gravitational lenses. Some of the resulting light-curves show puzzling low-level, rapid variability which is unique to individual…

Spectral differences between lensed quasar image components are common. Since lensing is intrinsically achromatic, these differences are typically explained as the effect of either microlensing, or as light path time delays sampling…

In gravitational lens systems with 3 or more resolved images of a quasar, the intrinsic variability may be unambiguously separated from the microlensing variability through parallax measurements from 3 observers when there is no relative…