Orientation effects on spectral emission features of quasars
Date Issued
2017
Author(s)
Abstract
We present an analysis of the orientation effects in Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasar composite spectra. In a previous work, we have shown that the equivalent width (EW) of the [O III] λ5007 Å (vacuum rest wavelength 5008.24 Å) line is a reliable indicator of the inclination of the accretion disc. Here, we have selected a sample of ∼12 000 quasars from the SDSS 7th Data Release and divided it in subsamples with different values of EW_{[{O {III}]}}. We find inclination effects both on broad and narrow quasars emission lines, among which an increasing broadening from low to high EW for the broad lines and a decreasing importance of the blue component for the narrow lines. These effects are naturally explained with a variation of source inclination from nearly face-on to edge-on, confirming the goodness of EW_{[{O {III}]}} as an orientation indicator. Moreover, we suggest that orientation effects could explain, at least partially, the origin of the anticorrelation between [O III] and Fe II intensities, I.e. the well-known eigenvector 1.
Volume
464
Issue
1
Start page
385
Issn Identifier
0035-8711
Ads BibCode
2017MNRAS.464..385B
Rights
open.access
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