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A Balmer-line Broad Absorption Line Quasar

2006· preprint· en· W3103916617 on OpenAlexaff
Patrick B. Hall

Bibliographic record

VenuearXiv (Cornell University) · 2006
Typepreprint
Languageen
FieldPhysics and Astronomy
TopicGalaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena
Canadian institutionsYork University
Fundersnot available
KeywordsBalmer seriesQuasarPhysicsAstrophysicsPopulationIonizationAbsorption (acoustics)Excited stateEmission spectrumLine-of-sightActive galactic nucleusGalaxySpectral lineAstronomyAtomic physicsOptics

Abstract

fetched live from OpenAlex

I report the discovery of blueshifted broad absorption line (BAL) troughs in at least six transitions of the Balmer series of hydrogen (Hbeta to H9) and in CaII, MgII and excited FeII in the quasar SDSS J125942.80+121312.6. This is only the fourth active galactic nucleus known to exhibit Balmer absorption, all four in conjunction with low-ionization BAL systems containing excited Fe II. The substantial population in the n=2 shell of H I in this quasar's absorber likely arises from Ly-alpha trapping. In an absorber sufficiently optically thick to show Balmer absorption, soft X-rays from the quasar penetrate to large τ_Lyαand ionize H I. Recombination then creates Ly-alpha photons that increase the n=2 population by a factor τ_Lyαsince they require about τ_Lyαscatterings to diffuse out of the absorber. Observing Ly-alpha trapping in a quasar absorber requires a large but Compton-thin column of gas along our line of sight which includes substantial H I but not too much dust. Presumably the rarity of Balmer-line BAL troughs reflects the rarity of such conditions in quasar absorbers.

Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.

How this classification was reachedexpand

Full frame machine prediction

Teacher imitation

Not 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.

metaresearch head score (Codex)0.000
metaresearch head score (Gemma)0.000
Version: metacan-v3-hybrid-931329e0061cValidation status: machine_predicted_unvalidated
Candidate categoriesnone
Consensus categoriesnone
DomainCandidate signal: none · Consensus signal: none
Study designCandidate signal: Observational · Consensus signal: Observational
GenreCandidate signal: Empirical · Consensus signal: Empirical
Teacher disagreement score0.002
Threshold uncertainty score0.005

Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)

CategoryCodexGemma
Metaresearch0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (narrow)0.0000.000
Meta-epidemiology (broad)0.0000.000
Bibliometrics0.0010.000
Science and technology studies0.0010.000
Scholarly communication0.0010.000
Open science0.0000.001
Research integrity0.0000.000
Insufficient payload (model declined to judge)0.0020.001

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.

Opus teacher head0.032
GPT teacher head0.181
Teacher spread0.148 · how far apart the two teachers sit on this one work
Validation statusscore_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from it

Classification

machine, unvalidated

Machine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.

The models applied no category: nothing in the taxonomy fit this work.
Study designObservational
Domainnot available
GenreEmpirical

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".

Quick stats

Citations16
Published2006
Admission routes1
Has abstractyes

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Same venuearXiv (Cornell University)Same topicGalaxies: Formation, Evolution, PhenomenaFrench-language works237,207