Search

Broad absorption lines (BALs) found in a significant fraction of quasar spectra identify highvelocity outflows that might be present in all quasars and could be a major factor in feedback to galaxy evolution. Understanding the nature of these flows requires further constraints on their physical properties, including their column densities, for which well-studied BALs, such as CIV λλ1548,1551, typically provide only a lower limit because of saturation effects. Low abundance lines, such as P V λλ1118,1128, indicate large column densities, implying that outflows more powerful than measurements of C IV alone would indicate. We search through a sample of 2694 BAL quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey III/Baryon Oscillation Spectroscopic Survey data release 9 quasar catalogue for such absorption, and we identify 81 ‘definite’ and 86 ‘probable’ detections of P V broad absorption, yielding a firm lower limit of 3.0–6.2 per cent for the incidence of such absorption among BAL quasars. The P V-detected quasars tend to have stronger C IV and Si IV absorption, as well as a higher incidence of LoBAL absorption, than the overall BAL quasar population. Many of the P V-detected quasars have C IV troughs that do not reach zero intensity (at velocities where P V is detected), confirming that the outflow gas only partially covers the UV continuum source. P V appears significantly in a composite spectrum of non-P V-detected BAL quasars, indicating that P V absorption (and large column densities) is much more common than indicated by our search results. Our sample of P V detections significantly increases the number of known P V detections, providing opportunities for follow-up studies to better understand BAL outflow energetics. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Broad absorption lines (BALs) in quasar spectra identify high-velocity outflows that might exist in all quasars and could play a major role in feedback to galaxy evolution. The viability of BAL outflows as a feedback mechanism depends on their kinetic energies, as derived from the outflow velocities, column densities, and distances from the central quasar. We estimate these quantities for the quasar, Q1413+1143 (redshift ze = 2.56), aided by the first detection of P v λλ1118, 1128 BAL variability in a quasar. In particular, P v absorption at velocities where the C iv trough does not reach zero intensity implies that the C iv BAL is saturated and the absorber only partially covers the background continuum source (with characteristic size <0.01 pc). With the assumption of solar abundances, we estimate that the total column density in the BAL outflow is log NH ≳ 22.3 cm−2. Variability in the P v and saturated C iv BALs strongly disfavours changes in the ionization as the cause of the BAL variability, but supports models with high column density BAL clouds moving across our lines of sight. The observed variability time of 1.6 yr in the quasar rest frame indicates crossing speeds >750 km s−1 and a radial distance from the central black hole of ≲ 3.5 pc, if the crossing speeds are Keplerian. The total outflow mass is ∼4100 M⊙, the kinetic energy ∼4 × 1054 erg, and the ratio of the outflow kinetic energy luminosity to the quasar bolometric luminosity is ∼0.02 (at the minimum column density and maximum distance), which might be sufficient for important feedback to the quasar's host galaxy. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]