Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jun 1983
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1983a%26a...123l...1s&link_type=abstract
Astronomy and Astrophysics (ISSN 0004-6361), vol. 123, no. 1, June 1983, p. L1-L3.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
2
Hydrogen Recombinations, Line Spectra, Quasars, Radio Astronomy, Radio Spectra, Red Shift, Cosmology, Distance
Scientific paper
It is shown that observations hydrogen of radio recombination lines from quasars can be used to derive a lower limit on the distance to a quasar. The equivalent width of lines is dependent on the emission measure of the ionized gas surrounding the quasar but independent of the distance to the quasar. On the other hand, the optical line flux from hydrogen recombination lines also depends on the emission measure, but decreases with the square of the distance. Thus, the distance to a quasar can be estimated from the comparison of the hydrogen radio and optical lines. This distance estimator is particularly attractive because it is based on the atomic physics of hydrogen; wavelength ratios demonstrate a spectacular level of agreement between atomic physics at high redshifts and that in terrestrial laboratories. The distance estimate is sensitive to the global geometry and the degree of clumping, and it is argued that this will not result in a large underestimation of the distance to a quasar.
Sarazin Craig L.
Wadiak Edward James
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