A First Close Look at the Balmer-edge Behavior of the Quasar Big Blue Bump

نویسندگان

  • Makoto Kishimoto
  • Omer Blaes
چکیده

We have found for the first time a Balmer edge feature in the Big Blue Bump emission of a quasar. The feature is seen in the polarized flux spectrum of the quasar, where all the emissions from outside the nucleus are scraped off and removed. The existence of the Balmer-edge absorption feature directly indicates that the Big Blue Bump is indeed thermal and optically-thick.

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

منابع مشابه

The Shape of the Big Blue Bump as Revealed by Spectropolarimetry

Thermal models for the quasar Big Blue Bump generally lead to bound-free continuum features, which may be in absorption or emission. Searches for Lyman edges attributable to quasar atmospheres (in particular accretion disk atmospheres) have been ambiguous at best, but various relativistic and non-LTE effects may make them hard to detect. The Balmer edge features tentatively predicted by such mo...

متن کامل

Four Partially Baked Results

D Whysong and I have been carrying out a mid-IR survey of 3C radio galaxies to see which have IR-excesses, interpretable as hidden Type-1 AGN. Mostly due to relentless bad weather, we have a modest collections of observations so far. However, we can say with confidence that some radio galaxies are true kinetic, nonthermal emitters, with negligible energetic contribution from a visible or hidden...

متن کامل

The buried Balmer-edge signatures from quasars†

In our previous paper, we have reported the detection of a Balmer edge absorption feature in the polarized flux of one quasar (Ton 202). We have now found similar Balmer edge features in the polarized flux of four more quasars (4C09.72, 3C95, B2 1208+32, 3C323.1), and possibly a few more, out of 14 newly observed with the VLT and Keck telescopes. In addition, we also re-observed Ton 202, but we...

متن کامل

Accretion around supermassive black holes: the detection of the Balmer edge signature from quasars

The ultraviolet/optical continuum of quasars is thought to be from an accretion flow around a supermassive black hole, and it dominates the radiative output of quasars. However, the nature of this emission, often called the Big Blue Bump, has not been well understood. Robust evidence for its thermal nature would be a continuum opacity edge feature intrinsic to this component, but this has not b...

متن کامل

The dust-eliminated shape of quasar spectra in the near-infrared: a hidden part of the big blue bump

The near-infrared shape of the big blue bump component in quasar spectra has been essentially unknown. It usually cannot be observed directly, due to the strong hot dust emission which dominates quasar spectra longward of ∼1μm. However this is quite an important part of the spectrum theoretically. At least bare disk models provide quite a robust prediction for the overall continuum shape in the...

متن کامل

ذخیره در منابع من


  با ذخیره ی این منبع در منابع من، دسترسی به آن را برای استفاده های بعدی آسان تر کنید

برای دانلود متن کامل این مقاله و بیش از 32 میلیون مقاله دیگر ابتدا ثبت نام کنید

ثبت نام

اگر عضو سایت هستید لطفا وارد حساب کاربری خود شوید

عنوان ژورنال:

دوره   شماره 

صفحات  -

تاریخ انتشار 2002