Correlations between the Variation of the Ionizing Continuum and Broad Absorption Lines in Individual Quasars
| Autor: | Wei-Jian Lu, Ying-Ru Lin |
|---|---|
| Rok vydání: | 2019 |
| Předmět: |
Physics
010504 meteorology & atmospheric sciences media_common.quotation_subject Continuum (design consultancy) FOS: Physical sciences Astronomy and Astrophysics Quasar Astrophysics Photoionization 01 natural sciences Astrophysics - Astrophysics of Galaxies Spectral line Ionizing radiation Amplitude Space and Planetary Science Sky Ionization Astrophysics of Galaxies (astro-ph.GA) 0103 physical sciences 010303 astronomy & astrophysics 0105 earth and related environmental sciences media_common |
| DOI: | 10.48550/arxiv.1908.03844 |
| Popis: | We discover the significant (significance level of >99%) correlations between the fractional variation of the ionizing continuum and that of the C IV and/or Si IV BALs in each of 21 BAL quasars that have at least five-epoch observations from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey-I/II/III. This result reveals that the fluctuation of the ionizing continuum is the driver of most of these BAL variations. Among them, 17 show negative correlations and the other 4 positive correlations, which agrees with the prediction of photoionization models that absorption line variability response to ionization changes is not monotonic. 8 quasars out of 21 examples have been observed at least 30 times on rest-frame timescales as short as a few days, which reveals that changes in the incident ionizing continuum can cause BAL variability even in such a short period of time. In addition, we find that most of the 21 quasars show larger variation amplitude in Si IV than C IV, which reveals the ubiquity of saturation in these BALs (at least for C IV BALs). 10 pages, 1 figure, accepted for publication in ApJ |
| Databáze: | OpenAIRE |
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