[en] Observational measures of AGNs allow us to directly infer some basic physical properties of quasars including (1) physical conditions and chemical abundances in the broad-line emitting gas as well as (2) radius of the line-emitting region, (3) black hole mass, (4) and Eddington ratio. In this chapter, we seek information on how these quantities are measured. One of the surprises of recent times, that would have shocked the discoverers in the 1960s are the large BH masses and high chemical abundances inferred for even some of the highest redshift quasars known.
Disciplines :
Space science, astronomy & astrophysics
Author, co-author :
D'Onofrio, Mauro; Dipartimento di Astronomia, Università degli Studi di Padova
Marziani, Paola; INAF, Osservatorio Astronomico di Padova
Sulentic, Jack W.; Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC)
Shields, Greg; Department of Astronomy, University of Texas
Kaspi, Shai; School of Physics and Astronomy and the Wise Observatory, The Raymond and Beverly Sackler Faculty of Exact Science, Tel-Aviv University
Padovani, Paolo; European Southern Observatory
Hutsemekers, Damien ; Université de Liège - ULiège > Département d'astrophys., géophysique et océanographie (AGO) > Astroph. extragalactique et observations spatiales (AEOS)
McLure, Ross; Institute for Astronomy, Royal Observatory Edinburgh
Laor, Ari; Technion - Israel Institute of Technology Physics Department
Vestergaard, Marianne; The Dark Cosmology Centre, The Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen ; Steward Observatory and Department of Astronomy, University of Arizona
Czerny, Bozena; Copernicus Astronomical Center
Hryniewicz, Krzysztof; Copernicus Astronomical Center
Dultzin, Deborah; Instituto de Astronomia, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM))
