Quasar Main Sequence Mystery Solved (IMAGE)

Carnegie Institution for Science

Quasar Main Sequence Mystery Solved

Caption

New work solves a quasar mystery that astronomers have been puzzling over for 20 years. It shows that most observed quasar phenomena can be unified with two simple quantities: one that describes how efficiently the hole is being fed, and the other that reflects the viewing orientation of the astronomer. This graph shows the distribution of about 20,000 luminous Sloan Digital Sky Survey quasars in the two-dimensional space of broad line width versus FeII strength, color-coded by the strength of the narrow [OIII] line emission. The strong horizontal trend is the main sequence of quasars driven by the efficiency of the black hole accretion, while the vertical spread of broad line width is largely due to our viewing angle to the inner region of the quasar.

Credit

Yue Shen

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