Laloux, Brivael and Petitjean, Patrick (2021) 'Towards modelling ghostly damped Ly αs.', Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 502 (3). pp. 3855-3869.
Abstract
We use simple models of the spatial structure of the quasar broad-line region (BLR) to investigate the properties of so-called ghostly damped Ly α (DLA) systems detected in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) data. These absorbers are characterized by the presence of strong metal lines but no H I Ly α trough is seen in the quasar spectrum indicating that, although the region emitting the quasar continuum is covered by an absorbing cloud, the BLR is only partially covered. One of the models has a spherical geometry, another one is the combination of two wind flows, whereas the third model is a Keplerian disc. The models can reproduce the typical shape of the quasar Ly α emission and different ghostly configurations. We show that the DLA H I column density can be recovered precisely independently of the BLR model used. The size of the absorbing cloud and its distance to the centre of the AGN are correlated. However, it may be possible to disentangle the two using an independent estimate of the radius from the determination of the particle density. Comparison of the model outputs with SDSS data shows that the wind and disc models are more versatile than the spherical one and can be more easily adapted to the observations. For all the systems, we derive log N(H I)(cm−2) > 20.5. With higher quality data, it may be possible to distinguish between the models.
Item Type: | Article |
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Full text: | (VoR) Version of Record Available under License - Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Download PDF (6525Kb) |
Status: | Peer-reviewed |
Publisher Web site: | https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stab173 |
Publisher statement: | © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Royal Astronomical Society. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Date accepted: | 15 January 2021 |
Date deposited: | 21 September 2021 |
Date of first online publication: | 22 January 2021 |
Date first made open access: | 21 September 2021 |
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