Vol 24, No 9

Co-variability Between the Broad Absorption Lines and Narrow Absorption Lines

Bo-Lin Qin (覃柏霖), Jing Li (黎静) and Wei-Jian Lu (陆伟坚)

Abstract

We investigate the relationship between the variability of broad absorption lines (BALs) or narrow absorption lines (NALs) and that of continuum using a data set of two-epoch SDSS spectra containing 134 C iv NAL-BAL pairs. Our analysis reveals an anti-correlation between the fractional equivalent width (EW) variations in NALs (or BALs) and the fractional flux variations of the continuum, with Spearman rank correlation coefficients of r = −0.47 (p = 1E-08) and r = −0.58 (p = 1E-13), respectively. In addition, we find a positive correlation between the fractional EW variations in NALs and BALs (r = 0.72, p = 1E-22), and derive a regression equation ΔEWNAL/〈EWNAL〉 = 0.803ΔEWBAL/〈EWBAL〉 + 0.008, with an intrinsic scatter of 0.14. These results suggest that the variability in the ionizing continuum may play a significant role in the observed changes in C iv NALs and BALs, supporting the idea of photoionization-driven variability. The co-variability between C iv NALs and BALs may imply that they originate from outflows with similar physical conditions.

Keywords

Key words: (galaxies:) quasars: absorption lines – (galaxies:) quasars: general – galaxies: active

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