J/ApJS/217/11     HeI* in broad absorption line QSOs        (Liu+, 2015)

A comprehensive study of broad absorption line quasars. I. Prevalence of HeI* absorption line multiplets in low-ionization objects. Liu W.-J., Zhou H., Ji T., Yuan W., Wang T.-G., Jian G., Shi X., Zhang S., Jiang P., Shu X., Wang H., Wang S.-F., Sun L., Yang C., Liu B., Zhao W. <Astrophys. J. Suppl. Ser., 217, 11 (2015)> =2015ApJS..217...11L 2015ApJS..217...11L
ADC_Keywords: QSOs ; Redshifts ; Equivalent widths ; Surveys Keywords: galaxies: active; quasars: absorption lines; quasars: general Abstract: Neutral helium multiplets, HeI*λλ3189, 3889, 10830, are very useful diagnostics for the geometry and physical conditions of the absorbing gas in quasars. So far only a handful of HeI* detections have been reported. Using a newly developed method, we detected the HeI*λ3889 absorption line in 101 sources of a well-defined sample of 285 MgII broad absorption line (BAL) quasars selected from SDSS DR5. This has increased the number of HeI* BAL quasars by more than one order of magnitude. We further detected HeI*λ3189 in 50% (52/101) of the quasars in the sample. The detection fraction of HeI* BALs in MgII BAL quasars is ∼35% as a whole, and it increases dramatically with increasing spectral signal-to-noise ratio (S/N), from ∼18% at S/N≤10 to ∼93% at S/N≥35. This suggests that HeI* BALs could be detected in most MgII LoBAL quasars, provided the spectra S/N is high enough. Such a surprisingly high HeI* BAL fraction is actually predicted from photoionization calculations based on a simple BAL model. The result indicates that HeI* absorption lines can be used to search for BAL quasars at low z, which cannot be identified by ground-based optical spectroscopic surveys with commonly seen UV absorption lines. Using HeI*λ3889, we discovered 19 BAL quasars at z<0.3 from the available SDSS spectral database. The fraction of HeI* BAL quasars is similar to that of LoBAL objects. File Summary: -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- FileName Lrecl Records Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ReadMe 80 . This file table3.dat 104 298 The parent sample of MgII BAL quasars in the SDSS-DR5 table4.dat 83 101 The HeI*λ3889 BAL quasars table5.dat 83 52 The HeI*λ3189 BAL quasars table6.dat 84 19 Low-z BAL AGNs tablea2.dat 81 285 UV continuum and emission-line parameters of the entire parent sample tablea3.dat 80 99 Optical continuum and emission-line parameters of the z<0.8 objects in the parent sample tablea4.dat 59 134 Duplicate spectroscopic observations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- See also: VII/270 : SDSS quasar catalog: tenth data release (Paris+, 2014) VII/260 : The SDSS-DR7 quasar catalog (Schneider+, 2010) VII/243 : SDSS quasar catalog. III. (Schneider+, 2005) J/AJ/145/157 : Reddening curve of IRAS 14026+4341 (Jiang+, 2013) J/PASJ/65/8 : Catalog of SDSS quasar absorption redshift (Qin+, 2013) J/ApJ/773/14 : BOSS: quasar luminosity function (Ross+, 2013) J/ApJ/761/184 : IR luminosities for dusty AGNs and QSOs (Weedman+, 2012) J/ApJ/757/51 : FIRST-2MASS dust-reddened QSO spectra (Glikman+, 2012) J/ApJ/748/131 : MgII absorbers in SDSS-DR7 quasar catalog (Shen+, 2012) J/ApJ/736/86 : FeII emission in SDSS type 1 AGNs (Dong+, 2011) J/A+A/525/A37 : QSO variability indexes in SDSS Stripe 82 (Meusinger+, 2011) J/MNRAS/405/2302 : Improved redshifts for SDSS quasar spectra (Hewett+, 2010) J/ApJ/709/611 : The multi-component absorber QSO 0318-0600 (Dunn+, 2010) J/ApJ/692/758 : BAL QSOs in SDSS-DR5 (Gibson+, 2009) J/MNRAS/399/2231 : SDSS DR5 BALQSO catalog (Scaringi+, 2009) J/MNRAS/383/581 : Broad-line Balmer decrements in blue AGN (Dong+, 2008) J/ApJ/665/990 : SDSS DR2 BAL QSOs (Ganguly+, 2007) J/MNRAS/371/495 : Catalog of 1806 MgII absorbers from SDSS DR3 (Bouche+, 2006) J/ApJS/165/1 : BAL QSOs from SDSS DR3 (Trump+, 2006) J/ApJ/640/579 : Near-infrared spectra of 27 SDSS quasars (Glikman+, 2006) J/A+A/417/515 : I Zw 1 unusual emission line spectrum (Veron-Cetty+, 2004) J/AJ/125/1711 : Broad Absorption Line Quasars from SDSS (Reichard+, 2003) J/AJ/121/2308 : Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasar photometry (Richards+, 2001) http://www.sdss.org/ : SDSS home page Byte-by-byte Description of file: table3.dat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes Format Units Label Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1- 19 A19 --- SDSS SDSS identifier (JHHMMSS.ss+DDMMSS.s) 20 A1 --- m_SDSS Multiple SDSS flag 22- 26 F5.3 --- z [0.3/1.4] Redshift 28- 32 I5 d MJD SDSS spectrum MJD 33 A1 --- --- [-] 34- 37 I4 --- Plate SDSS spectrum Plate 38 A1 --- --- [-] 39- 41 I3 --- Fiber SDSS spectrum Fiber 43- 47 F5.2 0.1nm EW [1.7/48.3] Equivalent width of MgII; Angstroms 49- 52 F4.2 0.1nm e_EW [0.2/6] Uncertainty in EW (1) 54- 57 I4 km/s AI [171/4917]? MgII absorption Index (2) 59- 62 F4.2 --- dabs [0/1] Maximum depth of MgII absorption trough 64- 69 I6 km/s vmax Maximum velocity of MgII absorption trough (3) 71- 76 I6 km/s vmin Minimum velocity of MgII absorption trough (3) 78- 83 I6 km/s vavg [-21195/107] Weighted average MgII absorption trough velocity 85- 88 F4.1 --- S/N [1.4/59] Median MgII Signal-to-Noise (4) 90-104 A15 --- Ref Reference code(s) (5) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note (1): The total error as defined in Section 2.2. Note (2): Measured according to the definition of Zhang et al. (2010ApJ...714..367Z 2010ApJ...714..367Z); see equation (8). Note (3): From the zero velocity. Note (4): In the range 2400-3000 Angstroms Note (5): Reference as follows: T06 = Trump et al. (2006, J/ApJS/165/1T); Z10 = Zhang et al. (2010ApJ...714..367Z 2010ApJ...714..367Z) G09 = Gibson et al. (2009, J/ApJ/692/758). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Byte-by-byte Description of file: table[456].dat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes Format Units Label Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1- 19 A19 --- SDSS SDSS identifier (JHHMMSS.ss+DDMMSS.s) (1) 20 A1 --- m_SDSS Multiple SDSS flag (1) 22- 26 F5.3 --- z [0.1/1.4] Redshift 28- 32 I5 d MJD SDSS spectrum MJD 33 A1 --- --- [-] 34- 37 I4 --- Plate SDSS spectrum Plate 38 A1 --- --- [-] 39- 41 I3 --- Fiber SDSS spectrum Fiber 43- 47 F5.2 0.1nm EW [0.4/6] Equivalent width of HeI; Angstroms 49- 52 F4.2 0.1nm e_EW [0.1/2] Uncertainty in EW 54- 57 F4.2 --- dabs Maximum depth of HeI absorption trough 59- 64 I6 km/s vmax Maximum velocity of HeI absorption trough (2) 66- 71 I6 km/s vmin Minimum velocity of HeI absorption trough (2) 73- 78 I6 km/s vavg [-16631/404] Weighted average HeI absorption trough velocity 80- 84 F5.2 --- S/N [2.6/44.3] Median He I Signal-to-Noise -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Note (1): Sources with the same designation but postfixed with a/b is corresponding to that of MgII in table 3. Note (2): From the zero velocity (3889.74 Angstrom for tables 4 and 6; or 3189 Angstrom for table 5). -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Byte-by-byte Description of file: tablea2.dat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes Format Units Label Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1- 19 A19 --- SDSS SDSS identifier 21- 25 F5.3 --- z [0.3/1.4] Redshift 27- 31 F5.2 --- beta [-4.8/5.1]? Continuum slope β between ∼3000 and 4000Å 33- 37 F5.2 [10-7W] logL3000 [44/46.6] Log luminosity at 3000 Angstroms 39- 44 F6.2 [cW/m2/nm] logF2500 [-16.7/-14.6] Log flux at 2500 Angstroms 46- 51 F6.2 [mW/m2] logFFe2 [-15.3/-12.4]? Log UV FeII line flux 53- 57 I5 km/s FWHM [717/11377]? Full-Width at Half-Maximum of broad MgII line 59- 64 F6.2 [mW/m2] logFMg2b [-15.9/-13.2]? Log broad MgII component flux 66- 71 F6.2 [mW/m2] logFMg2n [-17/-14.3]? Log narrow MgII component flux 73- 76 F4.2 [Msun] logMBH [6.6/9.8]? Log SM black hole mass (G1) 78- 81 F4.2 --- L/LEdd [0.02/5]? Luminosity in Eddington units -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Byte-by-byte Description of file: tablea3.dat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes Format Units Label Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1- 19 A19 --- SDSS SDSS identifier 21- 25 F5.3 --- z [0.3/0.8] Redshift 27- 31 F5.2 [10-7W] logL5100 [43.8/45.5] Log luminosity at 5100 Angstroms 33- 37 I5 km/s FWHMHb [1197/14057] Full-Width at Half-Maximum of broad Hβ line 39- 44 F6.2 [mW/m2] logFHbb [-15/-12.9]? Log broad Hβ component flux 46- 51 F6.2 [mW/m2] logFHbn [-17/-14.4]? Log narrow Hβ component flux 53- 58 F6.2 km/s FWHMO3 [-15.6/-13]? Full-Width at Half-Maximum of [OIII] line 60- 63 I4 [mW/m2] LogFO3 [241/4650]? Log [OIII] line flux 65- 70 F6.2 [mW/m2] logFFe2 [-16.4/-13.3]? Log optical FeII line flux 72- 75 F4.2 [Msun] logMBH [7.5/9.1]? Log SM black hole mass (G1) 77- 80 F4.2 --- L/LEdd [0.02/0.4]? Luminosity in Eddington units -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Byte-by-byte Description of file: tablea4.dat -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Bytes Format Units Label Explanations -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 1- 19 A19 --- SDSS Object identifier (JHHMMSS.ss+DDMMSS.s) 21- 25 F5.3 --- z [0.4/1.4] Redshift 27- 31 I5 d MJD Modified Julian Date of the observation 33- 36 I4 --- Plate Plate identifier 38- 41 I4 --- Fiber Fiber identifier 43- 52 A10 "YYYY/MM/DD" Date Date of the observation 54- 57 A4 --- Obs Source of the observation (BOSS or SDSS) 59 I1 --- HeI* HeI*(3889) absorption detection code (0 = detection failure in spectrum) -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Global notes: Note (G1): Derived by width of MgII emission lines, and the formula we used is the equation 10 in Wang et al. [2009ApJ...707.1334W 2009ApJ...707.1334W]. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- History: From electronic version of the journal
(End) Greg Schwarz [AAS], Emmanuelle Perret [CDS] 15-Apr-2015
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