| Issue |
A&A
Volume 664, August 2022
|
|
|---|---|---|
| Article Number | L4 | |
| Number of page(s) | 5 | |
| Section | Letters to the Editor | |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202244368 | |
| Published online | 09 August 2022 | |
Letter to the Editor
Gaia-supported re-discovery of a remarkable weak line quasar from a variability and proper motion survey⋆
1
Thüringer Landessternwarte, Sternwarte 5, 07778 Tautenburg, Germany
e-mail: meus@tls-tautenburg.de
2
Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam (AIP), An der Sternwarte 16, 14482 Potsdam, Germany
Received:
28
June 2022
Accepted:
27
July 2022
We demonstrate that VPMS J170850.95+433223.7 is a weak line quasar (WLQ) which is remarkable in several respects. It was already classified as a probable quasar two decades ago, but with considerable uncertainty. The non-significant proper motion and parallax from the Gaia Early Data Release 3 have solidified this assumption. Based on previously unpublished spectra, we show that VPMS J170850.95+433223.7 is a WLQ at z = 2.345 with immeasurably faint broad emission lines in the rest-frame ultraviolet. A preliminary estimate suggests that it hosts a supermassive black hole of ∼109 M⊙ accreting close to the Eddington limit, perhaps at the super-Eddington level. We identify two absorber systems with blueward velocity offsets of 0.05c and 0.1c, which could represent high-velocity outflows, which are perhaps related to the high accretion state of the quasar.
Key words: proper motions / quasars: absorption lines / quasars: emission lines / quasars: individual: VPMS J170850.95+433223.7
© H. Meusinger and R.-D. Scholz 2022
Open Access article, published by EDP Sciences, under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
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