The “red shelf" of the H line in the Seyfert 1 galaxies RXS J01177+3637 and HS 0328+05

¹ Observatoire de Haute Provence, CNRS, 04870 Saint-Michel l'Observatoire, France e-mail: mira@obs-hp.fr
² European Southern Observatory (ESO), Karl Schwarzschild Strasse 2, 85748 Garching bei München, Germany e-mail: adarbon@eso.org

Corresponding author: P. Véron, veron@obs-hp.fr

Received: 19 November 2001
Accepted: 8 January 2002

Abstract

A few Seyfert 1s have a Hβ profile with a red wing usually called the “red shelf". The most popular interpretation of this feature is that it is due to broad redshifted lines of Hβ and [O III]4959, 5007; we have observed two Seyfert 1s displaying a “red shelf" and showed that in these two objects the main contributor is most probably the He I 4922, 5016 lines having the velocity and width of the broad Hβ component. There is no evidence for the presence of a broad redshifted component of Hβ or [O III] in any of these two objects.