Paper detail

Line-driven radiative outflows in luminous quasars

An analysis of ~19500 narrow (<200 km/s) CIV 1548.2,1550.8 absorbers in ~34000 Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasar spectra is presented. The statistics of the number of absorbers as a function of outflow-velocity shows that in approximately two-thirds of outflows, with multiple CIV absorbers present, absorbers are line-locked at the 500 km/s velocity separation of the CIV absorber doublet; appearing as &#39;triplets&#39; in the quasar spectra. Line-locking is an observational signature of radiative line driving in outflowing material, where the successive shielding of &#39;clouds&#39; of material in the outflow locks the clouds together in outflow velocity. Line-locked absorbers are seen in both broad absorption line quasars (BALs) and non-BAL quasars with comparable frequencies and with velocities out to at least 20000 km/s. There are no detectable differences in the absorber properties and the dust content of single CIV doublets and line-locked CIV doublets. The gas associated with both single and line-locked CIV absorption systems includes material with a wide range of ionization potential (14-138 eV). Both single and line-locked CIV absorber systems show strong systematic trends in their ionization as a function of outflow velocity, with ionization decreasing rapidly with increasing outflow velocity. Initial simulations, employing CLOUDY, demonstrate that a rich spectrum of line-locked signals at various velocities may be expected due to significant opacities from resonance lines of Li-, He- and H-like ions of O, C and N, along with contributions from HeII and HI resonance lines. The simulations confirm that line driving can be the dominant acceleration mechanism for clouds with N(HI) ~ 10^19 cm^-2.