An Extraordinary Scattered Broad Emission Line in a Type 2 QSO

An infrared-selected, narrow-line QSO has been found to exhibit an extraordinarily broad Halpha emission line in polarized light. Both the extreme width (35,000 km/sec full-width at zero intensity) and 3,000 km/sec redshift of the line centroid with respect to the systemic velocity suggest emission in a deep gravitational potential. An extremely red polarized continuum and partial scattering of the narrow lines at a position angle common to the broad-line emission imply extensive obscuration, with few unimpeded lines of sight to the nucleus.Comment: 4 pages, 1 figure, to appear in the Astrophysical Journal Letter

Winners and Losers: Formula versus Competitive Funding of Agricultural Research

Research and Development/Tech Change/Emerging Technologies, O3, O4, Q16,

The FIRST Bright Quasar Survey. II. 60 Nights and 1200 Spectra Later

We have used the VLA FIRST survey and the APM catalog of the POSS-I plates as the basis for constructing a new radio-selected sample of optically bright quasars. This is the first radio-selected sample that is competitive in size with current optically selected quasar surveys. Using only two basic criteria, radio-optical positional coincidence and optical morphology, quasars and BL Lacs can be identified with 60% selection efficiency; the efficiency increases to 70% for objects fainter than magnitude 17. We show that a more sophisticated selection scheme can predict with better than 85% reliability which candidates will turn out to be quasars. This paper presents the second installment of the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey with a catalog of 636 quasars distributed over 2682 square degrees. The quasar sample is characterized and all spectra are displayed. The FBQS detects both radio-loud and radio-quiet quasars out to a redshift z>3. We find a large population of objects of intermediate radio-loudness; there is no evidence in our sample for a bimodal distribution of radio characteristics. The sample includes ~29 broad absorption line quasars, both high and low ionization, and a number of new objects with remarkable optical spectra.Comment: 41 pages plus 39 gifs which contain all quasar spectra. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Supplement Serie

The Metallicity of the Redshift 4.16 Quasar BR2248-1242

We estimate the metallicity in the broad emission-line region of the redshift z=4.16 quasar, BR2248-1242, by comparing line ratios involving nitrogen to theoretical predictions. BR2248-1242 has unusually narrow emission lines with large equivalent widths, thus providing a rare opportunity to measure several line-ratio abundance diagnostics. The combined diagnostics indicate a metallicity of ~2 times solar. This result suggests that an episode of vigorous star formation occurred near BR2248-1242 prior to the observed z=4.16 epoch. The time available for this enrichment episode is only ~1.5 Gyr at z=4.16 (for H_{0}=65 km s^-1 Mpc^-1, Omega_{m}=0.3 and Omega_Lambda ~< 1). This evidence for high metallicities and rapid star formation is consistent with the expected early-epoch evolution of dense galactic nuclei.Comment: 8 pages, 3 figures. Prepared in AAStex. Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal Revised version: added 1 referenc

KECK HIRES Spectroscopy of APM 08279+5255

With an optical R-band magnitude of 15.2, the recently discovered z=3.911 BAL quasar APM 08279+5255 is an exceptionally bright high redshift source. Its brightness has allowed us to acquire a high signal-to-noise ratio (~100), high resolution (~6 km/s) spectrum using the HIRES echelle spectrograph on the 10-m Keck I telescope. Given the quality of the data, these observations provide an unprecedented view of associated and intervening absorption systems. Here we announce the availability of this spectrum to the general astronomical community and present a brief analysis of some of its main features.Comment: 21 pages including 5 figures. Accepted for publication by PAS

The distribution of microlensed light curve derivatives: the relationship between stellar proper motions and transverse velocity

We present a method for computing the probability distribution of microlensed light curve derivatives both in the case of a static lens with a transverse velocity, and in the case of microlensing that is produced through stellar proper motions. The distributions are closely related in form, and can be considered equivalent after appropriate scaling of the input transverse velocity. The comparison of the distributions in this manner provides a consistent way to consider the relative contribution to microlensing (both large and small fluctuations) of the two classes of motion, a problem that is otherwise an extremely expensive computational exercise. We find that the relative contribution of stellar proper motions to the microlensing rate is independent of the mass function assumed for the microlenses, but is a function of optical depth and shear. We find that stellar proper motions produce a higher overall microlensing rate than a transverse velocity of the same magnitude. This effect becomes more pronounced at higher optical depth. With the introduction of shear, the relative rates of microlensing become dependent on the direction of the transverse velocity. This may have important consequences in the case of quadruply lensed quasars such as Q2237+0305, where the alignment of the shear vector with the source trajectory varies between images.Comment: 12 pages, including 9 figures. Submitted to M.N.R.A.S. Revised version includes a short section on the applicability of the metho