Determining the locations of dust sources in FeLoBAL quasars

Journal Article · Mon Jul 20 04:00:00 EDT 2015 · Astrophysical Journal

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/808/1/94· OSTI ID:22882811

Dunn, Jay P.; Wasik, Branden; Holtzclaw, Christin L.; Yenerall, David; Hayes, Daniel; Dutton, S. Harper ^[1]; Bautista, Manuel ^[2]; Arav, Nahum ^[3]; Moe, Max ^[4]

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1. Department of Physical Sciences, Georgia Perimeter College, Dunwoody, GA 30338 (United States)
2. Department of Physics, Western Michigan University, Kalamazoo, MI 49008-5252 (United States)
3. Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA 24060 (United States)
4. Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, 60 Garden Street, MS-10, Cambridge, MA 02138 (United States)

We conduct a spectroscopic search of quasars observed by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) with broad absorption line (BAL) troughs due to Mg ii and troughs due to Fe ii that simultaneously exhibit strong Balmer narrow emission lines (NELs). We find that in a redshift range of 0.4 ⩽ z ⩽ 0.9, approximately 23 of the 70 Mg ii BALs and 4 of a subset of 15 Fe ii BALs exhibit strong Balmer emission. We also find significant fractions of Mg ii BALs (approximately 23%) and those Mg ii BALs with Fe ii troughs (approximately 27%) have strong continuum reddening, E(B − V) ⩾ 0.1. From measurements of the Balmer decrement in three objects, we find similarly significant reddening of the NEL region in three of the four objects; the NELs in the fourth object are not measurable. We also include one object in this study not taken from the SDSS sample that shows Fe ii absorption and strong narrow emission, but due to measurement uncertainty and low continuum reddening the comparison is consistent but inconclusive. We find a trend in both the Mg ii and Fe ii BAL samples between the NEL reddening and continuum reddening. Because the narrow line reddening is consistent with the continuum reddening in every object in the two SDSS samples, it suggests that the reddening sources in these objects likely exist at larger radial distances than the narrow line regions from the central nucleus.

• OSTI ID: 22882811
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal, Journal Name: Astrophysical Journal Journal Issue: 1 Vol. 808; ISSN ASJOAB; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United Kingdom
• Language: English

Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
ABSORPTION
COMPARATIVE EVALUATIONS
COSMIC DUST
DISTANCE
EMISSION
GALACTIC EVOLUTION
GALAXIES
GALAXY NUCLEI
QUASARS
RED SHIFT