THE EFFECT OF ABUNDANCE VARIATIONS ON ESTIMATES OF THE DENSITIES OF BROAD-LINE REGION CLOUDS IN QUASARS

Authors

Stephanie A. Snedden, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow
C. Martin Gaskell, University of Nebraska-LincolnFollow

Document Type

Article

Date of this Version

8-20-1999

Comments

Published by University of Chicago Press; Astrophys. J. (Letters), 521, L91 (1999). Copyright 1999. Permission to use. HREF="http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/"http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/.

Abstract

There has been a long-standing discrepancy between the densities deduced from studies of the variability of quasar emission lines and those inferred from standard photoionization analyses. We have found that the higher metal abundances now believed to be present in most quasars lead to the higher densities being predicted by photoionization models. We explain why this is so.