Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
Feb 1993
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1993apj...404..539c&link_type=abstract
Astrophysical Journal, Part 1 (ISSN 0004-637X), vol. 404, no. 2, p. 539-550.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
3
Accretion Disks, Color, Galactic Evolution, Luminosity, Quasars, Astronomical Models, Red Shift
Scientific paper
We investigate the luminosity and color evolutions of a sample of about 550 quasars with redshifts z between 0.4 and 2.2. The flux and color distributions are compared with those expected for thin accretion disk spectra, and it is found that most sources are adequately described as thin disks. A significant number of sources, however, have colors too blue to be standard thin disks, and we postulate that these blue spectra represent young, super-Eddington sources with modified accretion structures such as radiation tori, filaments, or clouds. Using the thin disk model, we map the observed flux-color distribution onto the mass-accretion rate parameter space. The evolution of sources on this physical parameter space is found to be consistent with long-lived sources with central masses e-folding on a time scale about 1 Gyr. We present a unified, self-consistent model of quasar formation and evolution with new sources undergoing a short super-Eddington phase before settling into long-lived thin accretion disks.
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