Probing the Origin of Intrinsic Absorption Lines (NALs and mini-BALs) in the Spectra of Luminous Quasars

Details Probing the Origin of Intrinsic Absorption Lines (NALs and mini-BALs) in the Spectra of Luminous Quasars Probing the Origin of Intrinsic Absorption Lines (NALs and mini-BALs) in the Spectra of Luminous Quasars

Jan 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010aas...21535901e&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #215, #359.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 42, p.545

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We present the results of a number of studies aimed at probing the origin of intrinsic narrow and "mini-broad" absorption lines (NALs and mini-BALs) in the spectra of quasars. These studies include an X-ray survey of a sample of 16 objects, a spectroscopic search for variability, and spectropolarimetry of the rapidly variable mini-BAL in HS1603+3820. The X-ray survey shows that the absorption column density in NAL and mini-BAL quasars is not as high as that observed in BALs. NAL quasars follow most (but not all) correlations between absorption indicators found in BAL quasars. The variability study indicates that on time scales of years, mini-BALs display larger variations than NALs. The spectropolarimetric observations of HS1603+3820 show no excess polarization in the troughs of its C IV mini-BAL, which disfavors scattering of photons around the absorber as the cause of partial coverage. We interpret these observations in the context of accretion disk wind models and conclude that NALs and mini-BALs are absorbed along lines of sight that are different from those of BALs. The most likely scenario for the rapid variability of the mini-BAL of HS1603+3820 involves an interior porous screen that modulates the continuum incident on the C IV absorber. However, this interpretation need not be universal since the shapes of BAL troughs have been observed change with time.

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