Discovery of Extremely Broad Balmer Absorption Lines in SDSS J152350.42+391405.2

Zhang, Shaohua; Zhou, Hongyan; Shi, Xiheng; Shu, Xinwen; Liu, Wenjuan; Ji, Tuo; Jiang, Peng; Sun, Luming; Zhou, Junyan; Pan, Xiang

doi:10.1088/0004-637x/815/2/113

Cited by 26 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 79 publications

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“…The common picture of BAL outflows is that they are launched from quasar accretion disks and the lines we measure form within a few pc of the central black holes (e.g., Murray et al 1995;Murray & Chiang 1997;Proga & Kallman 2004;Everett 2005;Kazanas et al 2012; Matthews et al 2016). Some observational studies report small distances consistent with this picture (e.g., Wampler et al 1995;De Kool et al 2002a;Hall et al 2011;Capellupo et al 2013;Zhang et al 2015b;Muzahid et al 2016;Shi et al 2016a;Moravec et al 2017;Hamann et al 2018, and refs. therein), while others derive much larger radial distances up to several kpc (de Kool et al 2001;Moe et al 2009;Dunn et al 2010;Arav et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 52%

On the emergence of thousands of absorption lines in the quasar PG 1411+442: a clumpy high-column density outflow from the broad emission-line region?

Hamann

Tripp

Rupke

et al. 2019

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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Quasar outflows are fundamental components of quasar environments that might play an important role in feedback to galaxy evolution. We report on the emergence of a remarkable new outflow absorption-line system in the quasar PG1411+442 (redshift ∼0.089) detected in the UV and visible with the Hubble Space Telescope Cosmic Origins Spectrograph and the Gemini Multi-Object Spectrograph, respectively. This new "transient" system contains thousands of lines, including Fe ii and Fe ii* from excited states up to 3.89 eV, H i* Balmer lines, Na i D λ5890,5896, and the first detection of He i* λ5876 in a quasar. The transient absorber is spatially inhomogeneous and compact, with sizes 0.003 pc, based on covering fractions on the quasar continuum source ranging from ∼0.45 in strong UV lines to ∼0.04 in Na i D. cloudy photoionization simulations show that large total column densities log N H (cm −2 ) 23.4 and an intense radiation field 0.4 pc from the quasar are needed to produce the observed lines in thick zones of both fully-ionised and partially-ionised gas. The densities are conservatively log n H (cm −3 ) 7 based on Fe ii*, H i*, and He i* but they might reach log n H (cm −3 ) 10 based on Na i D. The transient lines appear at roughly the same velocity shift, v ∼ −1900 km s −1 , as a "mini-BAL" outflow detected previously, but with narrower Doppler widths, b ∼ 100 km s −1 , and larger column densities in more compact outflow structures. We propose that the transient lines identify a clumpy outflow from the broad emission-line region that, at its current speed and location, is still gravitationally bound to the central black hole.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 52%

On the emergence of thousands of absorption lines in the quasar PG 1411+442: a clumpy high-column density outflow from the broad emission-line region?

Hamann

Tripp

Rupke

et al. 2019

Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

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“…Currently, there are only a handful of BALQSOs that exhibit hydrogen Balmer absorption lines (e.g. Aoki 2010;Ji et al 2012;Zhang et al 2015;Shi et al 2016;Sun et al 2017;Schulze et al 2018) Although Balmer absorption lines are often seen in galaxy spectra, it is unlikely that the ones we see in AT2018zr are due to intervening galaxies or clouds because of the following reasons. First, high-ionization absorption troughs are detected at the same velocities as the H Balmer absorption lines, suggesting a dynamical association between them.…”

Section: High Velocity Transient Bal Systemmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…The blueshift velocity of AT2018zr is the highest amongst QSOs with Balmer BALs (Zhang et al 2015). Behind the hydrogen recombination front, the partially ionized regions that give rise to the H Balmer absorption lines usually have high densities (typically n e ∼ 10 6−9 cm −3 ; Zhang et al 2015, and references therein).…”

Section: Physical Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Discovery of Highly Blueshifted Broad Balmer and Metastable Helium Absorption Lines in a Tidal Disruption Event

Hung

Cenko

Roth

et al. 2019

ApJ

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We report the discovery of non-stellar hydrogen Balmer and metastable helium absorption lines accompanying a transient, high-velocity (0.05c) broad absorption line (BAL) system in the optical spectra of the tidal disruption event (TDE) AT2018zr (z = 0.071). In the HST UV spectra, absorption of high-and low-ionization lines are also present at this velocity, making AT2018zr resemble a low-ionization broad absorption line (LoBAL) QSO. We conclude that these transient absorption features are more likely to arise in fast outflows produced by the TDE than absorbed by the unbound debris. In accordance with the outflow picture, we are able to reproduce the flat-topped Hα emission in a spherically expanding medium, without invoking the typical prescription of an elliptical disk. We also report the appearance of narrow (∼1000 km s −1 ) N III λ4640Å, He II λ4686, Hα, and Hβ emission in the late-time optical spectra of AT2018zr, which may be a result of UV continuum hardening at late time as observed by Swift. Including AT2018zr, we find a high association rate (3 out of 4) of BALs in the UV spectra of TDEs. This suggests that outflows may be ubiquitous among TDEs and may be less sensitive to viewing angle effects compared to QSO outflows.

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“…They are potentially one of the most important pieces of feedback from AGNs and may play a crucial role in galaxy formation and evolution, connecting the central supermassive black holes (SMBHs) to their host galaxies and regulating their coevolution (e.g., Granato et al 2004;Scannapieco & Oh 2004;Hopkins et al 2008). Previous works suggested that the AGN outflows can reach from the small scale (at or outside of the broad emission line region [BELR]; e.g., Zhang et al 2015c;Williams et al 2016) to the intermediate scale (the dusty torus; e.g., Leighly et al 2015;Zhang et al 2015b;Shi et al 2016), the large scale (the inner narrow emission line region [NELR]; e.g., Komossa et al 2008;Crenshaw et al 2010;Ji et al 2015;Liu et al 2016), and even the entire host galaxy of the quasar (e.g., Zakamska et al 2016). There is general agreement that there has to be a radial component of motion and some opacity source; however, questions regarding the origins, whether homologous or not, and the properties themselves of the blueshifted-ELs and BALs remain interesting subjects of debate.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…This is because the BALs have high-speed blueshifted (up to a velocity ofṽ c 0.2 ) and broad-width (at least 2000 km s −1 ) troughs from a wide range of species, such as Mg II, Al III, Fe II, N V, C IV, Si IV, and O VI (e.g., Weymann et al 1991;Hall et al 2002;Reichard et al 2003; Trump et al 2006; Gibson et al 2010;Zhang et al 2010), and even from the hydrogen Balmer series (e.g., Hall 2007;Ji et al 2012Ji et al , 2013Zhang et al 2015b) and metastable He I (e.g., Liu et al 2015Liu et al , 2016, whose obvious features allow the BALs to be easily detected and measured. Unfortunately, the broad and narrow blueshifted-ELs (BBELs and BNELs) are generally mixed with the normal broad or narrow lines.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ultraviolet and Optical Emission Line Outflows in the Heavily Obscured Quasar SDSS J000610.67+121501.2: At the Scale of the Dusty Torus and Beyond

Zhang

Zhou

Shi

et al. 2017

ApJ

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Broad emission line outflows of active galactic nuclei have been proposed for many years but are very difficult to quantitatively study because of the coexistence of the gravitationally bound and outflow emission. We present detailed analysis of a heavily reddened quasar, SDSS J000610.67+121501.2, whose normal ultraviolet broad emission lines (BELs) are heavily suppressed by the dusty torus as a natural "coronagraph," and thus the blueshifted BELs (BBELs) can be reliably measured. The physical properties of the emission-line outflows are derived as follows: ionization parameter~-U 10 0.5 , column densityÑ 10 H 22.0 cm −2 , covering fraction of ∼0.1, and upper limit density ofñ 10 H 5.8 cm −3 . The outflow gases are located at least 41 pc away from the central engine, which suggests that they have expanded to the scale of the dust torus or beyond. Besides, Lyα shows a narrow symmetric component, to our surprise, which is undetected in any other lines. After inspecting the narrow emission line region and the star-forming region as the origin of the Lyα narrow line, we propose that the end result of outflows, diffusing gases in the larger region, acts as the screen of Lyα photons. Future high spatial resolution spectrometry and/or spectropolarimetric observations are needed to make a final clarification.

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Discovery of Extremely Broad Balmer Absorption Lines in SDSS J152350.42+391405.2

Cited by 26 publications

References 79 publications

On the emergence of thousands of absorption lines in the quasar PG 1411+442: a clumpy high-column density outflow from the broad emission-line region?

On the emergence of thousands of absorption lines in the quasar PG 1411+442: a clumpy high-column density outflow from the broad emission-line region?

Discovery of Highly Blueshifted Broad Balmer and Metastable Helium Absorption Lines in a Tidal Disruption Event

Ultraviolet and Optical Emission Line Outflows in the Heavily Obscured Quasar SDSS J000610.67+121501.2: At the Scale of the Dusty Torus and Beyond

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