Quasars' Optical Polarization and Balmer Edge Feature Revealed by Ultra-Violet, and Polarized Visible to Near Infrared Emissions

• Published in: arXiv.org 2012-06
• Main Authors: Hu, Renyu, Zhang, Shuang-Nan
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Absorption; Astronomical research; Computer simulation; Contamination; Deposition; Emission; Galaxies; Inclination; Magnetic fields; Markov chains; Monte Carlo simulation; Near infrared radiation; Neutral gases; Optical polarization; Quasars; Radio frequency
• ISSN: 2331-8422
• DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.1206.2569

Polarized emission from a quasar is produced by wavelength-independent electron scattering surrounding its accretion disc, and thus avoid the contamination from its host galaxy and reveal the intrinsic emission spectrum of the accretion disc. Ultra-violet (UV) emission from a quasar is normally free from the contamination from its host galaxy. Polarization fraction of the quasar's disc emission can therefore be determined by comparing total UV emission with polarized visible to near-infrared (NIR) emission; and the resulting continuum spectrum from UV to infrared can reveal the theoretically expected Balmer edge absorption feature. We fit the polarized spectra in visible and NIR bands together with the total UV spectra of two type-1 quasars (3C 95, 4C 09.72), to an extended geometrically thin and optically thick accretion disc model. In addition to the standard model, we include the Balmer edge absorption due to co-rotational neutral gas on a narrow annulus of the accretion disc. We find that the extended thin accretion disc model provides adequate description on the continuum spectra of the two quasars from UV to NIR wavelengths. A Monte-Carlo-Markov-Chain fitting to the continuum spectra is able to well constrain the true polarization fraction of the disk emission, which allows the Balmer edge feature to be completely revealed from polarized visible to UV continua. The Balmer edge feature is prominent in both quasars' spectra, and is significantly broadened due to the orbital motion of gas in the accretion disc. The broadening of the Balmer edge feature is therefore related to the quasar's inclination. This work proves the concept of determining quasar's inclination from the Balmer edge feature in their continuum spectra.