Hbeta Profiles in Quasars: Evidence for an Intermediate-line Region

Abstract

We report on a systematic investigation of the Hbeta and Fe II emission lines in a sample of 568 quasars within z < 0.8 selected from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The conventional broad Hbeta emission line can be decomposed into two components--one with intermediate velocity width and another with very broad width. The velocity shift and equivalent width of the intermediate-width component do not correlate with those of the very broad component of Hbeta, but its velocity shift and width do resemble Fe II. Moreover, the width of the very broad component is roughly 2.5 times that of the intermediate-width component. These characteristics strongly suggest the existence of an intermediate-line region, whose kinematics seem to be dominated by infall, located at the outer portion of the broad-line region.

4 pages, 6 figures, Accepted for publication in ApJ (Letters) ; corrected typos, added references

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