Implications of Lyman continuum observations of quasars.
Abstract
Using current estimates of the sizes of the continuum source and the emission line clouds, and the gas covering factor, it is shown that the expected depression at the Lyman continuum is about half that expected from simple arguments concerning the covering factor. Observations of an object chosen to be fairly free of intervening Ly-alpha absorption, and expected to have a relatively large covering factor from theoretical arguments, are compatible with covering factors between 0 and 25 percent. Present Lyman-limit observations provide no meaningful limit to the covering factor, but they severely constrain thermal models for the uv bump.
- Publication:
-
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
- Pub Date:
- December 1988
- Bibcode:
- 1988MNRAS.235.1121C
- Keywords:
-
- Active Galactic Nuclei;
- Lyman Spectra;
- Quasars;
- Absorption Spectra;
- Continuous Spectra;
- Emission Spectra;
- Lyman Alpha Radiation;
- Spectral Line Width;
- Astrophysics;
- Lyman Continuum:Quasars;
- Quasars:Lyman Continuum;
- Quasars:Radiative Transfer;
- Radiative Transfer:Quasars