The CaFe Project: Optical Fe II and Near-Infrared Ca II triplet emission in active galaxies: (I) Photoionization modelling

Abstract

Optical Fe II emission is a strong feature in quasar spectra originating in the broad-line region (BLR). The difficulty in understanding the complex Fe II pseudo-continuum has led us to search for other reliable, simpler ionic species such as Ca II. In this first part of the series, we confirm the strong correlation between the strengths of two emission features, the optical Fe II and the NIR Ca II, both from observations and photoionization modelling. With the inclusion of an up-to-date compilation of observations with both optical Fe II and NIR Ca II measurements, we span a wider and more extended parameter space and confirm the common origin of these two spectral features with our photoionization models using CLOUDY. Taking into account the effect of dust into our modelling, we constrain the BLR parameter space (primarily, in terms of the ionization parameter and local cloud density) as a function of the strengths of Fe II and Ca II emission.

21 pages, 12 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in ApJ

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• Dust-driven wind as a model of Broad Absorption Line quasars
• High-redshift quasars along the Main Sequence
• Chemical abundances along the quasar main sequence
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• Broad-line region in active galactic nuclei: Dusty or dustless?
• Linear Spectropolarimetric Analysis of Fairall 9 with VLT/FORS2
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• The CaFe Project: Optical FeII and Near-Infrared Ca II triplet emission in active galaxies. II. The driver(s) of the Ca II and Fe II and its potential use as a chemical clock