Tracing Outflows in High-Redshift Quasars

摘要

High-redshift quasars are thought to represent an early stage of galaxy evolution, inwhich models by, e.g., Di Matteo et al. (2008) and Hopkins et al. (2008) predict that ma-jor mergers trigger violent star formation and the rapid growth of a central supermassiveblack hole. We investigate the details of this relationship using the largest-ever survey(others include Savaglio et al. 1994; Wampler et al. 1996) of narrow associated absorptionline (AAL, Vwidth < 500 km s-1, forming within 12,000 km s-1 of the quasar emission ve-locity) metallicities and physical properties in a sample of high-redshift (z > 3) quasarswith Keck high-resolution spectra in a range of near-quasar environments, includingquasar outflows and host galaxy halos. We measure C iv and Hi optical depths, coveringfractions, widths, and column densities. We obtain good ionization constraints and de-termine well-constrained metallicities for five AAL systems in one z > 3 and two z > 4quasars. We determine lower limits for metallicities for AALs in four other z 4 quasars.