Constraining FeLoBAL outflows from absorption line variability
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Iron low-ionization broad absorption lines (FeLoBALs) trace a rare class of quasar outflows with large column densities and potentially large kinetic energies that might be important for ‘feedback’ to galaxy evolution. In order to probe the physical properties of these outflows, we conducted a multiple-epoch, absorption line variability study of 12 FeLoBAL quasars spanning a redshift range of 0.7 ≤ z ≤ 1.9 over rest-frame time-scales of ∼10 d to 7.6 yr. We detect absorption line variability with ≥8σ confidence in 3 out of the 12 sources in our sample over time-scales of ∼0.6 to 7.6 yr. Variable wavelength intervals are associated with ground- and excited-state Fe ii multiplets, the Mg ii λλ2796, 2803 doublet, Mg i λ2852, and excited-state Ni ii multiplets. The observed variability along with evidence of saturation in the absorption lines favours transverse motions of gas across the line of sight as the preferred scenario, and allows us to constrain the outflow distance from the supermassive black hole to be ≲ 69, 7, and 60 pc for our three variable sources. In combination with other studies, these results suggest that the outflowing gas in FeLoBAL quasars resides on a range of scales and includes matter within tens of parsecs of the central source.
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How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.002 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".