The broad emission-line region: the confluence of the outer accretion disc with the inner edge of the dusty torus

(Abridged) We investigate the observational characteristics of BLR geometries in which the BLR clouds bridge the gap, both in distance and scale height, between the outer accretion disc and the hot dust, forming an effective surface of a "bowl". The gas dynamics are dominated by gravity, and we include the effects of transverse Doppler shift, gravitational redshift and scale-height dependent macro-turbulence. Our simple model reproduces many of the phenomena observed in broad emission-line variability studies, including (i) the absence of response in the core of the optical recombination lines on short timescales, (ii) the enhanced red-wing response on short timescales, (iii) differences between the measured delays for the HILs and LILs, and (iv) identifies turbulence as a means of producing Lorentzian profiles (esp. for LILs) in low inclination systems, and for suppressing significant continuum--emission-line delays between the line wings and line core (esp. in LILs). A key motivation of this work was to reveal the physical underpinnings of the reported measurements of SMBH masses and their uncertainties. We find that SMBH masses derived from measurements of the fwhm of the mean and rms profiles show the closest correspondence between the emission lines in a single object, even though the emission line fwhm is a more biased mass indicator with respect to inclination. The predicted large discrepancies in the SMBH mass estimates between emission lines at low inclination, as derived using the line dispersion, we suggest may be used as a means of identifying near face-on systems. Our general results do not depend on specific choices in the simplifying assumptions, but are in fact generic properties of BLR geometries with axial symmetry that span a substantial range in radially-increasing scale height supported by turbulence, which then merge into the inner dusty TOR.Comment: 29 pages, 23 figures and 1 tabl

Analysis of UV protection requirements and testing of candidate attenuators for the Haloe optical instrument

Results of calculations are presented which simulate photolytic processes occurring in HALOE gas calibration cells exposed to extra-terrestrial solar ultraviolet photons. These calculations indicate that significant photolysis takes place in two of the sapphire-enclosed cells over the exposure periods of the proposed mission. A subsequent laboratory investigation is also described in which a high-voltage discharge hydrogen light source is used in conjunction with a vacuum ultraviolet spectrograph. The UV emission from this lamp was used to expose two candidate UV attenuators (ZnSe and coated Ge) to ascertain their suitability as UV filters while maintaining original infrared optical properties. Both materials were found to be effectively opaque to vacuum UV radiaton and suffered no adverse effects regarding their infrared transmissivity

Removal of spacecraft-surface particulate contaminants by simulated micrometeoroid impacts

A series of hypervelocity impacts has been conducted in an exploding lithium-wire accelerator to examine with a far-field holographic system the removal of particulate contaminants from external spacecraft surfaces subjected to micrometeoroid bombardment. The impacting projectiles used to simulate the micrometeoroids were glass spheres nominally 37 microns in diameter, having velocities between 4 and 17 km/sec. The particulates were glass spheres nominally 25, 50, and 75 microns in diameter which were placed on aluminum targets. For these test, particulates detached had velocities that were log-normally distributed. The significance of the log-normal behavior of the ejected-particulate velocity distribution is that the geometric mean velocity and the geometric standard deviation are the only two parameters needed to model completely the process of particles removed or ejected from a spacecraft surface by a micrometeoroid impact

New insights into ultraluminous X-ray sources from deep XMM-Newton observations

The controversy over whether ultraluminous X-ray sources (ULXs) contain a new intermediate-mass class of black holes (IMBHs) remains unresolved. We present new analyses of the deepest XMM-Newton observations of ULXs that address their underlying nature. We examine both empirical and physical modelling of the X-ray spectra of a sample of thirteen of the highest quality ULX datasets, and find that there are anomalies in modelling ULXs as accreting IMBHs with properties simply scaled-up from Galactic black holes. Most notably, spectral curvature above 2 keV in several sources implies the presence of an optically-thick, cool corona. We also present a new analysis of a 100 ks observation of Holmberg II X-1, in which a rigorous analysis of the temporal data limits the mass of its black hole to no more than 100 solar masses. We argue that a combination of these results points towards many (though not necessarily all) ULXs containing black holes that are at most a few 10s of solar mass in size.Comment: 5 pages, 2 figures, to appear in the proceedings of "The X-ray Universe 2005", San Lorenzo de El Escorial (Spain), 26-30 September 200

Locally Optimally Emitting Clouds and the Origin of Quasar Emission Lines

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.Comment: 9 pages including 1 ps figure. LaTeX format using aaspp4.st

Development of a high-altitude airborne dial system: The Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE)

The ability of a Differential Absorption Lidar (DIAL) system to measure vertical profiles of H2O in the lower atmosphere was demonstrated both in ground-based and airborne experiments. In these experiments, tunable lasers were used that required real-time experimenter control to locate and lock onto the atmospheric H2O absorption line for the DIAL measurements. The Lidar Atmospheric Sensing Experiment (LASE) is the first step in a long-range effort to develop and demonstrate an autonomous DIAL system for airborne and spaceborne flight experiments. The LASE instrument is being developed to measure H2O, aerosol, and cloud profiles from a high-altitude ER-2 (extended range U-2) aircraft. The science of the LASE program, the LASE system design, and the expected measurement capability of the system are discussed

Does Every Quasar Harbor A Blazar?

Assuming there is a blazar type continuum in every radio-loud quasar, we find that the free-free heating due to the beamed infrared continuum can greatly enhance collisionally excited lines, and thus explain the stronger CIV $\lambda$1549 line emission observed in radio loud quasars. We further predict that the CIV line should show variability {\it not} associated with observed continuum or Ly$\alpha$ variability.Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures; to appear in Astrophys. J. Let

The Origin of Fe II Emission in AGN

We used a very large set of models of broad emission line (BEL) clouds in AGN to investigate the formation of the observed Fe II emission lines. We show that photoionized BEL clouds cannot produce both the observed shape and observed equivalent width of the 2200-2800A Fe II UV bump unless there is considerable velocity structure corresponding to a microturbulent velocity parameter v_turb > 100 km/s for the LOC models used here. This could be either microturbulence in gas that is confined by some phenomenon such as MHD waves, or a velocity shear such as in the various models of winds flowing off the surfaces of accretion disks. The alternative way that we can find to simultaneously match both the observed shape and equivalent width of the Fe II UV bump is for the Fe II emission to be the result of collisional excitation in a warm, dense gas. Such gas would emit very few lines other than Fe II. However, since the collisionally excited gas would constitute yet another component in an already complicated picture of the BELR, we prefer the model involving turbulence. In either model, the strength of Fe II emission relative to the emission lines of other ions such as Mg II depends as much on other parameters (either v_turb or the surface area of the collisionally excited gas) as it does on the iron abundance. Therefore, the measurement of the iron abundance from the FeII emission in quasars becomes a more difficult problem.Comment: 23 pages. Accepted by Ap