An FeLoBAL Binary Quasar

Abstract

In an ongoing infrared imaging survey of quasars at Keck Observatory, we have discovered that the z=1.285 quasar SDSS J233646.2-010732.6 comprises two point sources with a separation of 1.67". Resolved spectra show that one component is a standard quasar with a blue continuum and broad emission lines; the other is a broad absorption line (BAL) quasar, specifically, a BAL QSO with prominent absorption from MgII and metastable FeII, making it a member of the ``FeLoBAL'' class. The number of known FeLoBALs has recently grown dramatically from a single example to more than a dozen, including a gravitationally lensed example and the binary member presented here, suggesting that this formerly rare object may be fairly common. Additionally, the presence of this BAL quasar in a relatively small separation binary adds to the growing evidence that the BAL phenomenon is not due to viewing a normal quasar at a specific orientation, but rather that it is an evolutionary phase in the life of many, if not all, quasars, and is particularly associated with conditions found in interacting systems.

AASTEX 13 pp., 4 figs; accepted by ApJ Letters

References in corpus (3)

• Spectroscopic Target Selection in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey: The Quasar Sample
• Unusual Broad Absorption Line Quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• The Reddest Quasars II. A gravitationally-lensed FeLoBAL quasar

Cited by in corpus (24)

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• The Frequency and Radio Properties of Broad Absorption Line Quasars
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• Iron Emission in z~6 QSOs
• Direct Evidence for Termination of Obscured Star Formation by Radiatively Driven Outflows in Reddened QSOs
• Implications of Dramatic Broad Absorption Line Variability in the Quasar FBQS J1408+3054
• The clustering of the luminosities of optical afterglows of long Gamma Ray Bursts
• Radio Through X-ray Spectral Energy Distributions of 38 Broad Absorption Line Quasars
• Varstrometry for Off-nucleus and Dual sub-Kpc AGN (VODKA): Hubble Space Telescope Discovers Double Quasars
• Evidence that FeLoBALs may signify the transition between an ultraluminous infrared galaxy and a quasar
• Clustering on very small scales from a large sample of confirmed quasar pairs: Does quasar clustering track from Mpc to kpc scales?
• Discovery of a dual AGN at z~3.3 with 20kpc separation
• Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field Camera 3 Identifies an $r_p$ = 1 Kpc Dual Active Galactic Nucleus in the Minor Galaxy Merger SDSS J0924+0510 at z = 0.1495
• Near-IR spectroscopy of luminous LoBAL quasars at 1<z<2.5
• The extraordinary mid-infrared spectral properties of FeLoBAL Quasars
• A SCUBA-2 survey of FeLoBAL QSOs: Are FeLoBALs in a `transition phase' between ULIRGs and QSOs?
• The Spectrum of the FeLoBAL Quasar FBQS 1214+2803: A Resonance-Scattering Interpretation
• Lens or Binary? Chandra Observations of the Wide Separation Broad Absorption Line Quasar Pair UM425
• Broad-band spectral energy distribution of 3000 Angstroem break quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Two Active Nuclei in 3C294
• Finding binary active galactic nuclei candidates by the centroid shift in imaging surveys II. Testing the method with SDSS J233635.75-010733.7
• The Messy Nature of Fiber Spectra: Star-Quasar Pairs Masquerading as Dual Type 1 AGNs
• A multiwavelength study of near- and mid-infrared selected galaxies at high redshift: ERGs, AGN-identification and the contribution from dust