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Locally Optimally Emitting Clouds and the Origin of Quasar Emission Lines

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arxiv astro-ph/9510080 v1 pith:GGTPCZK7 submitted 1995-10-16 astro-ph

classification astro-ph
keywords cloudslinedensitycontinuumquasarspectrumconsequencecovering
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The similarity of quasar line spectra has been taken as an indication that the emission line clouds have preferred parameters, suggesting that the environment is subject to a fine tuning process. We show here that the observed spectrum is a natural consequence of powerful selection effects. We computed a large grid of photoionization models covering the widest possible range of cloud gas density and distance from the central continuum source. For each line only a narrow range of density and distance from the continuum source results in maximum reprocessing efficiency, corresponding to ``locally optimally-emitting clouds'' (LOC). These parameters depend on the ionization and excitation potentials of the line, and its thermalization density. The mean QSO line spectrum can be reproduced by simply adding together the full family of clouds, with an appropriate covering fraction distribution. The observed quasar spectrum is a natural consequence of the ability of various clouds to reprocess the underlying continuum, and can arise in a chaotic environment with no preferred pressure, gas density, or ionization parameter.

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Cited by 4 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Revealing the Physical Driver of the Baldwin Effect: Gas Density in the Broad-Line Region

    astro-ph.GA 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

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    astro-ph.GA 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Balmer-line absorption occurs in ~35% (14/40) of JWST little-red-dot AGNs, roughly 850x the rate in SDSS type-1 AGNs, with mostly slow blueshifted absorber velocities.

  3. Physically motivated AGN emissivity profiles and their effects on quasar microlensing signatures. 1. Multi-epoch accretion disc size inference

    astro-ph.GA 2026-07 accept novelty 6.0 of 10

    Interpreting composite disc-plus-BLR emission as a single compact disc systematically overestimates microlensing half-light radii, with the bias set mainly by the BLR flux fraction and the compact-disc emissivity shape.

  4. Understanding the Broad-line Region of Active Galactic Nuclei with Photoionization. II. Slim disks, Self-shadowing, and BLR sizes

    astro-ph.GA 2026-05 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Slim-disk self-shadowing plus accretion-rate-dependent BLR density enhancement explains the observed offsets of high-Eddington AGNs below the canonical R-L relation.

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