http://arxiv.org/abs/1506.01276
Recently some pessimism has been expressed about our lack of progress in understanding quasars over the 50+ year since their discovery. It is worthwhile to look back at some of the progress that has been made – but still lies under the radar – perhaps because few people are working on optical/UV spectroscopy in this field. Great advances in understanding quasar phenomenology have emerged using eigenvector techniques. The 4D eigenvector 1 context provides a surrogate H-R Diagram for quasars with a source main sequence driven by Eddington ratio convolved with line-of-sight orientation. Appreciating the striking differences between quasars at opposite ends of the main sequence (so-called population A and B sources) opens the door towards a unified model of quasar physics, geometry and kinematics. We present a review of some of the progress that has been made over the past 15 years, and point out unsolved issues.
J. Sulentic and P. Marziani
Thu, 4 Jun 15
30/60
Comments: 27 pages, 6 figures