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# Galaxy Collisions and Star Formation

## 1. Introduction

Galaxy collisions may be the predominant cause of star formation in galaxies over the course of their lifetimes. In the local universe, strong collisions between comparable mass galaxies are rare, and star formation in gaseous disks usually takes place in relatively quiescent circumstances. However, it is thought that there was an epoch in the past when both strong and glancing collisions between comparable mass galaxies were much more common. These interactions would have produced strong tidal torques and density waves, as observed in the rare, strongly interacting disk galaxies of the local universe. Observations of recently impacted disk galaxies usually show evidence of enhanced rates of recent and current star formation (starbursts). Our three-dimensional numerical simulations of collisions between comparable mass galaxies demonstrate that the gas volume density in the disk can be increased by significant factors, both in the nucleus and in pronounced features that form well away from the galactic center. These collision-induced density enhancements can give rise to ring galaxies, strong, one-armed spirals, and grand-design spirals. The very high density regions produced experience strong shocks in many circumstances, which may play an important role in determining the subsequent amount and exact location of star formation. We present comparisons between multi-wavelength observations of star forming, impacted galaxies and our 3-D numerical simulations of galaxy collisions involving disk galaxies. We show that the timescale for massive star formation can be very short, and that the resulting morphology and velocity structure in the disk can be understood for several well-observed systems.

The collision and subsequent merger of clumps of stars and gas to form the current galaxies is a central tenet of the theory of hierarchical galaxy formation. (This is reviewed elsewhere in this volume.) However, the details of the interactions are somewhat unclear, as yet. Do the ”dark matter” halos merge at an early stage, while luminous clumps of material have a large relative velocity within these halos, forming tight, high velocity galaxy groups? Are the currently observed compact groups (see Sulentic 2000) the remnants of such a population? The amount and location of star formation in this interacting material, as in current galaxies, will be effected by, among other things, the relative velocities and morphologies of the colliding galaxies, the amount of molecular gas that exists, and the background gravitational potential. The effects of these parameters can be explored for systems in the nearby universe and the results applied judiciously to studies of star formation at earlier times.

One area of exploration that has been given considerable observational attention is that of the relationship between interactions, star formation, and the presence of molecular gas. Recently, this has been investigated for an optically-selected sample of interacting galaxies (see Bushouse et al. 2000, and references within). The choice of sample is important because many previous studies were of infrared-bright selected galaxies which might give somewhat different results. (There are numerous references on this subject, for example Young et al. 1996.) The Bushouse sample spans a large range of interaction strengths and star formation rates, as well as infrared properties. Several of the conclusions drawn were consistent with those found from the IR-selected samples, namely, that 1) interacting galaxies are, on average, marginally richer in molecular gas than a comparison sample of isolated spiral galaxies (assuming the standard conversion factor of CO to H2), 2) the interacting galaxies also have a mean infrared luminosity to H2 mass ratio that is a factor of 1.3 higher than the isolated galaxies, and 3) there is a strong correlation between relative H2 content and the star formation rate, indicating that interaction-induced star formation activity is highly dependent upon the available gas supply. However, other results could only be found in a study of this type of sample. These included, that some galaxies have moderate amounts of H2 but much lower than normal star formation rates and IR emission. (This implies that molecular gas is a necessary, but not sufficient, prerequisite for star formation in these systems.) An apparent strong correlation between interaction strength and both star formation rate and relative H2 content is found in these studies. However, this correlation could be completely removed by invoking non-standard CO-to-H2 conversion factors. Thus there is no strong evidence that interactions initiate conversion of HI to H2 gas, only that the star formation rate is usually higher when more H2 is present.

## 2. Detailed exploration of nearby systems

Observations of recently impacted objects in the local universe, when compared with numerical simulations of galaxy collision, can be used to investigate some important aspects of the induced star formation. In this section we review the results from two studies involving comparisons between multiwavelength observations of star-forming impacted disk galaxies and numerical simulations of colliding galaxies. The systems Arp 118 and Arp 119 both contain a strongly perturbed disk galaxy and an identifiable intruding companion which collided recently, that is, within the last few tens of millions of years. In the studies of these systems, it has been shown that fully dynamical, 3D numerical simulations of an elliptical galaxy colliding with a disk galaxy can reproduce the morphology of the disturbed disk galaxy and the general shape of the elliptical. The results of the simulations are consistent with the approximate relative positions of the two galaxies within each pair, and with the velocity gradients across the disks. The ability to simulate the gross behaviors of both the stars and gas in specific colliding systems leads to the possibility of investigating the timing and amount of massive star formation following the collision, of identifying the size of some of the large-scale physical parameters of the gas involved in the new star formation, and of following the resulting flows of gas in the impacted disk.

All of the ’best-fit’ models to the colliding pairs mentioned above were chosen from a grid of simulations presented in Gerber (1993), Gerber, Lamb, & Balsara (1996), and Lamb, Hearn, & Gerber (2000). These simulations explore the results of face-on collisions (ones parallel to the spin-axis of the disk) between an elliptical galaxy and a disk galaxy, and are comprised of combined N-body/hydrodynamical simulations. The model of the rotating disk galaxy consists of gas, stars, and dark matter, while that of the spherical galaxy is composed of stars and dark matter only. Mass ratios from 1:1 to 10:1 have been explored, with impact parameters ranging from zero (head-on) to slightly larger than the disk radius. The gas dynamics is treated using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) method, and the gravitational forces are calculated using standard particle-mesh (PM) techniques. Both the n-body (stellar and dark matter) and SPH (gas) particles contribute to the gravitational potential.

The numerical simulations can be physically scaled to individual galaxy systems if the masses and sizes of the galaxies involved are known. Thus, an estimate of the distance, as well as observations at a variety of wavelengths, must be available if a model fitting is to be attempted for a particular system. The choice of real systems to compare with simulations is mostly dictated by the existence of observational data sets for comparable mass galaxies in pairs. Further selection is based upon the general morphology of the disk galaxy, where indications that the impact was roughly parallel to the spin axis of the disk is sought. Such an impact produces several unique morphological features, such as full or partial rings. These impact-induced morphologies are explored and discussed in Gerber & Lamb (1994). Once the present-day match is found between a real system and a model taken from a simulation, observed regions of recent, current, and potential star formation can be matched with regions of high gas density and shocks during the course of the simulation. Some understanding of the history of, and the conditions influencing, star formation can then be obtained from the simulation.

Arp 118 is comprised of two galaxies, an elliptical (NGC 1143) and a disturbed disk galaxy (NGC 1144) containing a very extended starburst ring and connected arc. These two galaxies have a separation of 42 kpc on the sky (assuming $`H_0=75`$ km s-1 Mpc$`^1`$), and a relative velocity between their nuclei of 300 km s$`^1`$along the line of sight. NGC 1143 is a luminous infrared galaxy with a total luminosity of approximately $`3\times 10^{11}`$L and L$`{}_{IR}{}^{}=2.5\times 10^{11}`$L (Appleton & Struck-Marcel 1987), a very strong CO(1-0) emission (L$`{}_{CO}{}^{}=10^{10}`$L, Gao et al. 1997), and an extreme velocity gradient across the ring of 1100 km s$`^1`$(see Hippelein 1989a, b). Recent observations of the neutral and ionized gas in this system are presented in Bransford et al. (1999). The nucleus is displaced from the center of the ring structure and is classified as Seyfert 2 (Hippelein 1989a).

Lamb, Hearn, & Gao (1998) showed that the disturbed morphology, the extreme velocity gradients, and the morphological relationships between the emitting regions as observed in radio, H$`\alpha `$, and CO, can be explained as resulting from a collision between a rotating disk galaxy and a somewhat less massive elliptical which passed through the disk approximately 42 Myr ago at a slight angle to the perpendicular to the disk. The detailed modeling does not support a prior suggestion (see Gao 1996, and references within) that a merger was needed to explain the morphology and large velocity gradients of NGC 1144. The overall dynamics and morphology of the Arp 118 system are well represented by a numerical model of an off-center collision in which the disk galaxy has a mass four times that of the intruding elliptical. In particular, the most notable large-scale feature of the system, the extensive arm of compressed gas edged with a dark dust lane, is very well matched by the model.

The sequence of the various star formation episodes in NGC 1144 was determined by matching the models at three different stages of the simulation with observations in three wavelength bands mentioned above, each of which corresponds to a well-defined epoch of star formation. The radio and H$`\alpha `$ emission of a starbursting galaxy are an indication of the star formation activity that occurred at earlier times, the H$`\alpha `$ being from the more recently formed stars. The CO observations provide information about those regions of the gas that are currently dense and likely to form stars shortly. The dimensions of the simulation were scaled to the physical system using the observed length scales and mass of the spiral galaxy as given by Gao et al. (1997) and Hippelein (1998a). These scaled units were then used to determine the times at which the collision and subsequent star formation episodes took place.

This study demonstrates for the first time the connection between the spatial and temporal progression of star formation, and the changing locations of the very dense regions in the gas of a massive disk galaxy in the aftermath of its collision with a massive elliptical. The collision generated a strong, non-linear density wave in the stars and gas in the disk of NGC 1144, causing the gas to became clumped on a large scale. This wave produced a series of superstarclusters along arcs and rings that emanate from the central point of impact. The locations of these star forming regions match those of the regions of increased gas density predicted in the time sequence of models.

It is thought that stars, particularly massive stars, are formed in the cores of giant molecular clouds in the highest density regions. Both multiwavelength observations and the numerical models indicate that strong shocks in the gas, together with large increases in the gas volume density, are associated with star formation over volumes of 1 kpc3. The observed morphology of the regions of dense gas and the clustering observed in the newly formed, H$`\alpha `$ emitting stars suggest that the observed clumping of the young stars results from a clumping of the densest gas on the same scale. The work by Marston & Appleton (1995) and Appleton & Marston (1997) also provides evidence that the clumping observed in the optical images of collisionally produced ring galaxies is not due to patchy dust obscuration, because the same clustering is also observed in the near infrared. Gas clumping on this same scale is found in the numerical simulations, suggesting that there is a global explanation for the observed morphology of the dense gas and the resulting giant stellar formations in these systems.

The Arp 119 system (also known as CPG 29) has also been studied. The southern member (Arp 119S) of the pair has a strongly disturbed, asymmetric form, while the northern member, Arp 119N, appears to be a normal elliptical, although very devoid of gas (Marziani, et al, 1994). Arp 119S exhibits some remarkable features, including: a bright, circular ring surrounding the nucleus; a luminous arc north of the nucleus that extends to the west; a long arc of knots along the southern edge; and a veil of low-luminosity material in the east. This galaxy nucleus is classified as a LINER. Observations and model fitting of this system are summarized in another paper in this volume (see Hearn, Lamb, Gruendl, & Gerber 2000). A longer paper describing new infrared observations and a simulation fit to these and other observations is in preparation (Hearn & Lamb 2000).

The displacement of the nucleus in Arp 119S from the center of the ring indicates a face-on collision with a significant impact parameter (about 25 percent of the disk’s radius), and the structure of the luminous arc in the northern part of Arp 119 indicated that the elliptical and disk galaxies, including their dark matter halos, are of comparable mass. The analysis of the simulations and the observations suggests that the collision between Arp 119N and Arp 119S took place about 71 million years ago. Multiwavelength image, see, for example, Marziani et al. 1994, reveal locations of past and present starburst events in Arp 119S. These regions have been correlated in space and time with regions of enhanced density and strong shocks in the simulated gas disk. It was found that at least two distinct star formation episodes occurred as a result of the collision. One is currently ongoing, and the other occurred approximately 24 Myr after the impact. The first burst occurred when the expanding, rotating structure of dense gas produced by the collision had formed a ring around the inner third of the disk. This ring of gas produced the bright ring of stars around the nucleus that is now observed in the B-band image. This high density region in the gas has now spread and opened up, and reaches to the edge of the visible disk. It shows up as a northern arc of molecular gas that leads to a bright arc of B-band and H$`\alpha `$ emission. The long arc of star-forming knots at the southern edge of Arp 119S is coincident with high-density knots in the gas, forming a southern arc in the simulation. The gas density is relatively low in the eastern half of the simulation, matching the region of low luminosity in the optical image. The study of the colliding pair Arp 119 indicates that the star formation triggered by a collision is not continuous in time or space through the impacted disk, but rather occurs in distinct episodes.

## 3. Conclusions

The studies described above demonstrate that a careful comparison between high resolution observations and detailed models can yield insight into the sequence of star formation that takes place in a gas-rich galaxy after a major collision. The relative velocities between the two galaxies can be high, as illustrated by the Arp 119 system and the observations of compact groups (Sulentic 2000), and the first encounter can produce considerable morphological change and trigger star formation. The time for a merger of the members of the pair or group may be very large, but the star formation can be triggered early, and perhaps often, by collisions.

The intensity and location of the starburst at any particular epoch will depend upon the speed with which density waves are propagating through the expanding disk. Such quantities can now be predicted quite accurately from current models of colliding galaxies. Thus star formation on the scale of several hundred parsecs, as it occurs in these systems at the current epoch, can now be investigated more thoroughly. The rate of galaxy collisions in the past was larger than it is today, so a considerable portion of the star formation that took place in disk galaxies at earlier epochs was likely triggered by galaxy collisions. We expect, therefore, that studies like the ones summarized here will help in understanding this earlier star formation and its current consequences.

A longer overview of studies of this type, accompanied by a video illustrating some of the results, is given in Lamb, Hearn, & Gerber (2000).

## References

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Appleton, P. N. & Struck-Marcel, C., 1987, ApJ, 312, 566

Bransford, M. A., Appleton, P. N., McCain, C. F. & Freeman, K. C. 1999, ApJ, 525, 153

Bushouse, H. A., Lord, S. D., Lamb, S. A., Werner, M. W., & Lo, K. Y. 2000, submitted to ApJ

Gao, Y., 1996, Ph.D. Thesis, State University of New York at Stony Brook

Gao, Y., Solomon, P. M., Downes, D., Radford, S. 1997, ApJLett, 481, L35

Gerber, R. A., 1993, Ph.D. Thesis, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Gerber, R. A. & Lamb S. A. 1994, ApJ, 431, 604

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# THE X-RAY ABSORBER IN BROAD ABSORPTION LINE QUASARS

## 1. Introduction

Broad Absorption Lines (BALs) are prominent features in the UV spectra of $``$ 10-15% of optically selected quasars. The lines are formed in ionized winds in which the speeds can range from near zero to more than 30,000 km s-1. The absorption features most commonly observed are Ly$`\alpha `$ $`\lambda `$ 1216, CIV $`\lambda `$1549, SiIV $`\lambda `$1397, and NV $`\lambda `$1240. Low ionization broad absorption lines (LoBALs), such as MgII $`\lambda `$2798 and Al III $`\lambda `$1857 are detected in about 15% of the objects. For two BAL QSOs, higher ionization lines, up through Ne VIII $`\lambda `$774, Mg X $`\lambda `$615, Si XII $`\lambda `$499, are reported from UV observations with HST and HUT (Korista & Arav 1997, Telfer et al. 1998). Since most BAL QSOs are only observed by ground based optical telescopes which can not access the spectral range of these very high ionization lines, the true incidence of the very high ionization BALs is not known.

The observed frequency of BALQSOs among all quasars, combined with the assertion that the absorbing material covers $``$ 0.2 of the solid angle, leads to the conclusion that every QSO has outflows which intercept only a fraction of the solid angle of the central object (e.g., Hamann, Korista & Morris 1993). This picture is supported by the similarity of UV continuum and emission line properties of BAL and non-BAL QSOs (Weymann et al., 1991). The BAL region covers, at least partially, the broad emission line region since the NV absorption trough is usually deeper than the local continuum. The large momentum of radiation absorbed by resonance transitions is probably responsible for the acceleration of the gas. The signature of a kick-off effect at velocities of about 6000 km s-1 further supports this picture (Arav, Li & Begelman 1994).

Establishing the physical properties of the flow is a fundamental issue in BAL studies. Earlier work was solely based on a few prominent UV absorption lines, usually CIV, Ly$`\alpha `$, NV, SiIV, and, for LoBAL, MgII and AlIII, with the assumption that the absorbing material fully covers the emission region and is not seriously saturated. These studies suggested an over-abundance of metals; C and N are, relative to H, enhanced by a factor 3-5 and an even larger abundance for Si was deduced. More recently, based on the detection of P V absorption lines, Haman (1998) argued for a large column density instead of extremely high phosphorus abundance. From the UV spectra taken by the Hubble Space Telescope of high or moderate redshift BAL QSOs, the line profiles of many more lines, including lines from different ionization stages of the same element, were measured for several objects. These observations indicate that either the absorbing material only covers partially the line of sight to the continuum or the scattered light fills in the absorption trough (e.g., Arav et al. 1999). The fact that the spectro-polarimetry of BAL usually shows higher polarization in the BAL trough than for the continuum and emission line region also favors the latter interpretation (e.g., Schmidt & Hines 1999, and references therein).

X-ray spectra, even at their currently relatively low resolution, have the advantage that photo-electric X-ray absorption does not have saturation problems and that it can be used to measure the total absorption column density. As a result, the light from the scattering medium or the leakage of a partially covered absorber is distinguishable from the transmitted light, thus allowing measurement of the effective covering factor of the absorber.

BAL QSOs had not been targets for a systematic study in the X-ray band until their extra-ordinary properties in the soft X-ray band were discovered by ROSAT (Green et al. 1995, Green & Mathur 1996), and they remain a rare class with extremely weak X-ray emission. In the soft X-ray band, there are only four reported cases of detections (PG 1411+442, PG 1001+054, PG 2112+059, SBS 1542+541 (Brinkmann et al. 1999, Brandt et al. 1999, Telfer et al. 1998) showing apparent broad band optical-to-X-ray spectral indices $`1.85\alpha _{ox}2.25`$, while only upper limits are available for the other objects. ROSAT observations of the LoBAL QSO PG 1700+518 yield an even higher upper limit of $`\alpha _{ox}>2.3`$ (Wang et al. 1996), and the current X-ray observations are not sensitive enough to establish how high these values really are. However, we noticed that a ROSAT detection is more likely for weak BAL objects. Two ROSAT detections, Mrk 231 and IRAS 07598+6508 (marginal), are probably associated with the circumnuclear starburst instead of nuclear activity (Turner 1999). The weak X-ray emission was interpreted to be due to strong absorption, instead of an intrinsically X-ray weakness of the sources. This required a column densities of $`10^{2324}`$ cm-2 (Brinkmann et al. 1999, Wang et al. 1999, Gallagher et al. 1999).

Therefore, a critical question arises whether the UV and X-ray absorber is the same material. What is the geometry of this absorber? What is the ionization status? In this paper, we try to address these questions by examining the ionization status of the X-ray absorber in the BAL.

## 2. Ionizing Continuum

The shape of the ionizing continuum is crucial for the determination of the ionization structure of the photo-ionized gas. For non-BAL QSOs, an average spectrum is derived by combining the soft X-ray spectrum at the low redshift end and the HST far-UV spectrum at high redshifts (Laor et al. 1997, Zheng et al. 1998). However, we cannot construct a mean ionizing continuum for BAL QSOs in this way as soft X-ray emission has not been detected from most BAL QSOs. In addition, it is believed that the few detections do not show the intrinsic spectrum but only the scattered/leaked component of the primary emission. The only reported detection of the primary X-ray component is PG 1411+442 in the medium energy X-ray band by ASCA.

The simultaneous analysis of the ROSAT and ASCA data of PG 1411+442 was presented by Brinkmann et al. (1999); a more extended treatment combining the UV data from HST and the X-ray data from ROSAT and ASCA can be found in Wang et al. (1999). They found a primary X-ray component absorbed by $`2.5\times 10^{23}`$ cm-2 and scattered flux at about 3-5 per cent of the intrinsic emission. It is worthywhile to point out that although they assumed the photon index of high energy component ($`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{high}`$) to be 2.0 because it ($`2.2_{0.7}^{+0.8}`$ for 2.7 $`\sigma `$ error bar) was not well constrained by the fit, the absorption is well constrained to be larger than 1.5 $`10^{23}`$ cm-2 (at 90% confidence level) even when the $`\mathrm{\Gamma }_{high}`$ is left as a free parameter.

Figure 1 shows the Spectral Energy Distribution (SED) of PG 1411+442 from the optical to the X-ray band. The infrared to optical data have been taken from Neugebauer et al. (1987). The UV spectrum from IUE between 2000-3000Å is extracted from the IUE final archive and corrected for the Galactic reddening E(B-V)=0.03 (N$`{}_{}{}^{G}{}_{H}{}^{}`$=1.4 $`10^{20}`$ cm-2). Reddening corrected HST spectra were taken from Wang et al. (1999). In the X-ray band, the observed ROSAT and ASCA spectra are shown (model A of Wang et al. 1999). A composite radio-quiet QSO spectrum from the optical to the X-ray band obtained by combining the results from Zheng et al. (1998) and Laor et al. (1997) is plotted for comparison. The absorption corrected infrared to X-ray spectrum of PG 1411+442 is clearly similar to that of average radio-quiet quasars. For the above broken power-law model with absorption as a free parameter, the intrinsic 1350Åto 1 keV spectral index is 1.55$`{}_{}{}^{+0.20}{}_{0.33}{}^{}`$ (only taking into account the X-ray flux uncertainty).

Figure 1 also shows the SED of two other BAL QSOs, PG 1001+054 and PG 2112+059, detected by ROSAT. The ROSAT spectra were fitted with an absorbed power law. Absorption ($`N_H=2.8_{2.4}^{+6.3}10^{20}`$ $`cm^2`$) in excess of the Galactic one is not needed for PG 1001+054; therefore, the column density is fixed at the Galactic value ($`1.910^{20}`$ $`cm^2`$), and the fit yields a photon index $`\mathrm{\Gamma }=3.5_{0.4}^{+0.6}`$. However, the X-ray flux at 1 keV is lower by a factor of 50 compared to the mean radio-quiet QSOs. This is unlikely to be intrinsic since the HeII $`\lambda `$1640 is fairly strong in the HST spectrum (Fig. 2) of PG 1001+442 with an equivalent width larger than that in the composite HST QSO spectrum ( Zheng et al. 1998), implying that the ionizing continuum seen by the BLR should be hard (Korista, Ferland & Baldwin 1997). The strength of CIV line, found to correlate with ionizing continuum spectral index (e.g., Wang et al. 1998), also indicates hard continuum spectrum. In fact, the apparent broad band spectra of PG 1001+059 and PG 1411+442 from the infrared to soft X-rays are similar. Therefore, we believe that the ROSAT spectrum is also the scattered component, as in PG 1411+442, and that the fraction of scattering is even lower in this object. The interpretation of scattering is consistent with the fact that the ROSAT spectral index of PG 1001+054 fits well to the FWHM of H$`\beta `$ versus spectral index correlation (see Wang, Brinkmann, & Bergeron 1996, Laor et al. 1997).

The situation for PG 2112+043 is slightly more complicated. Large absorption is certainly present. By fixing the photon index to the average value of 2.7 of the radio-quiet PG quasars a power law fit with free absorption yields an optical to X-ray spectral index 2.0$`\pm 0.2`$ and an absorption column density $`N_H`$=7$`{}_{}{}^{+8}{}_{4}{}^{}`$ 1021 cm-2, where errors are given at 90% confidence levels for one parameter. Clearly, the absorption corrected flux is still lower by a factor of about 5-10 with respect to that of average QSOs (see also Figure 1). It is, however, not clear whether the ROSAT spectrum represents the transmitted continuum or a combination of scattered plus transmitted component. Complicated absorption models such as a partially covered high column plus a uniformly covering low column absorber can reproduce the feature as well.

In summary, so far it appears that the observed broad SEDs of BAL QSOs are consistent with the intrinsic SED of typical non-BAL QSOs modified by absorption in the soft X-ray band. For this reason, we will use the average quasar spectral energy distribution in our calculations. However, there is no guarantee that it represents the typical SED of BAL QSOs, since the ROSAT detected BAL QSOs only account for a small fraction of all BAL QSOs and there are some indications that they are special; for example, the strength of the CIV BAL in these objects is lower than the average value for BAL QSOs (Weymann et al. 1991).

## 3. Physical Parameters: General Considerations

In this section, we summarize the ranges of the physical parameters, obtained either directly or estimated from observations. For the estimates derived from the UV spectrum, we assume that the X-ray absorber fully covers the UV continuum source.

Column density: The column density for PG 1411+442 has been determined to be $`N_H=2.510^{23}`$ cm-2. Although the column densities for other BAL QSOs have not directly been measured, they are likely similar or even larger. The fact that the X-ray emission from BAL QSOs is very weak, even in the ASCA band, constrains the column densities to be higher than a few times $`10^{23}`$ cm-2 in most bright BAL QSOs if their intrinsic X-ray emission is comparable to that of the other radio-quiet QSOs (Brinkmann et al. 1999, Gallagher et al. 1999). Thus, a typical column density of $`10^{23.5}`$ cm-2 seems to be a quite conservative estimate.

Density: The density of the absorbing gas is virtually unknown. However, for a photo-ionized gas the ionization structure is not sensitive to the density. The lack of broad \[OIII\] emission in QSOs suggests that the typical density of an UV absorber is higher than $`10^8`$ cm-3. This conclusion, however, is somewhat ionization-dependent. If the BAL region is highly stratified and Oxygen is ionized beyond \[OIII\] as our calculations for X-ray absorber show (see sect. 4.1), then there are no constraints for a lower limit to the gas density in the highly ionized zone. Earlier reports of a possible detection of absorption lines from excited ions OV\* and CIII\* (Pettini & Boksenberg 1986, Korista et al. 1992) require an even higher density ($`n_e10^{11}`$ cm-3). These results were questioned by later high S/N observation (Arav et al. 1999). A rather large range of densities might co-exist in the BAL region and Arav et al. proposed dense flow tubes embedded in a low density global flow to explain the ionization dependent covering factor.

Metal abundances: BAL quasars are claimed to have remarkably high abundances of heavy elements relative to the solar values. C, Si, N, P, and Fe are over-abundant by 1-2 orders of magnitude. The abundances were derived from the optical BAL depths together with photoionization models assuming ionization equilibrium. The enhancement of metal elements can be reduced, but not eliminated, by using complicated shapes for the ionizing continuum. The qualitative results will not be altered by considering saturation of the absorption lines since troughs in CIV and NV are much deeper than in Ly$`\alpha `$. The calculations presented below, however, are based on cosmic abundances, since little is known about the abundances of the X-ray absorber, which might be different from that of the UV absorbing gas. Since the X-ray opacity is mainly determined by heavy elements, the column density mentioned above actually measures that of the heavy elements; therefore, the results are correct as far as the metals are concerned. The hydrogen column density is roughly inversely proportional to the measured metal abundance. The reason is that for lower abundances thicker material is needed to produce the same X-ray absorption, and the X-ray column density is the equivalent hydrogen density with solar metal abundances.

Ionization parameter: An upper limit on the ionization parameter for the X-ray absorber can be obtained by requiring that the material is not too highly ionized to be transparent for the low energy soft X-rays. Brinkmann et al. (1999) showed that a uniformly covering warm absorption model does not fit the ROSAT+ASCA spectra of PG 1411+442, and they argued for a partially covering absorption model or for an absorption plus scattering model. However, both Brinkmann et al. and Wang et al. simply used a neutral absorber. We show below that combining the ROSAT and ASCA spectrum can put a tight upper limit on the ionization parameter of the absorber.

Allowing the absorbing medium to be partially ionized, we use the ionized absorption model absori in XSPEC to replace wabs for the model of an absorbed, broken power law plus a scattering component by electrons (see Wang et al. 1999 for details). The break energy has been fixed at 1.0 keV and the photon index of the hard X-rays at $`\mathrm{\Gamma }`$=2.0. The ionizing continuum is assumed to be a power law with a photon index 2.5 from the UV to hard X-rays. This simplified continuum is not an exact representation for the ionizing continuum but it produces similar results as Netzer’s more complicated model for PG 1126-041 (H. Netzer, private communication). We use an X-ray ionization parameter Ux, which is defined as the dimensionless ratio of photon density above 0.1 keV and the particle density (Netzer 1996), instead of $`\xi =L/(nr^2)`$, since it is much less dependent on the detailed UV to X-ray spectral slope. Figure 3 shows 68%, 90% and 99% contours for the ionization parameter versus the column density for the absorbing material. The upper limit on $`U_x`$ is mainly constrained by the photon flux at energies lower than 0.4 keV, and depends only weakly on the column density. At $`N_H=210^{23}`$ cm-2, one obtains $`U_x<0.11`$ (at 90% confidence level, see Fig. 3). For the SED of average radio-quiet quasars, linearly extrapolated from the UV to X-ray energies, the hydrogen ionization parameter is $`U_H=35U_x`$.

If we assume that the intrinsic X-ray spectrum of PG 1001+054 is similar to an average radio-quiet QSO, the unabsorbed X-ray flux will be by a factor 30 greater. We fitted the ROSAT spectrum with a two component model, in which a primary power law continuum, 30 times larger than the observed one, is completely covered by an ionized absorber and an electron-scattered continuum component which is only absorbed by the Galactic absorption, similar to the model for PG 1411+442. Taking typical column density ($`N_H=10^{23.5}`$ cm-2) for the ionizing material, an upper limit (at 90% confidence level) of $`U_x<0.2`$ can be estimated. The exact value is dependent on the assumed column density as well as assumption of the intrinsic continuum.

A lower limit on the ionization parameter can be obtained by considering the absorption by hydrogen. In the HII zone, the fraction of neutral hydrogen is approximately $`n(H^0)/n(H^+)10^{5.3}/U_H`$ for a gas photo-ionized by a typical AGN continuum (Netzer et al. 1990). The ratio would be lower than that given above when the ionization parameter is high, so that collisional ionization becomes significant. Since the Lyman break is not severe for most HI BAL QSOs (Korista et al. 1992, Arav et al. 1999) this puts an upper limit on the total column density of neutral hydrogen on the line of sight to the UV continuum emission region to be less than $`10^{17.3}`$ cm-2 ($`\tau _{912}1`$). For typical column densities this implies a lower limit of $`U_H=5`$ if the X-ray absorber fully covers the UV continuum emission region. A tighter constraint on the neutral hydrogen column density can be derived by using the Ly$`\alpha `$ line absorption but required a knowledge of the distribution of HI column density in velocity space.

## 4. Predicted Absorption and Emission Lines

### 4.1. Absorption Lines

In order to qualitatively estimate the ionization status of the heavy elements, we first consider the source of opacity in the 0.2 to 0.4 keV soft X-ray band. For a weakly ionized gas helium is a major contributor to the opacity. However, if the hydrogen Lyman break is not severe, helium atoms will produce negligible absorption in 0.2-0.4 keV band. The fraction of He+ can be roughly estimated from $`He^{++}/He^+10^{3.2}U_H`$ for the typical ionizing AGN continuum (Netzer et al. 1990). This gives $`H^0/He^+0.1`$ for gas dominated by $`He^{++}`$. Since the photo-electric absorption cross section decreases with photon energy as $`E^3`$, in order to produce an optical depth of order $`\tau =1`$ at 0.2 keV, an optical depth $`\tau (54eV)51`$ is required! This implies an optical depth at the Lyman limit of the order of 9. Therefore it appears unlikely that helium contributes significantly to the opacity at 0.2 keV without producing a serious Lyman break. Thus the 0.2 to 0.4 keV opacity must be produced by heavy elements.

Figure 3 shows the ionization potentials (IPs) of the valence electrons for the ions of the four most abundant elements C, O, N, and Ne. The IPs for the first K-shell electrons are 392, 552, 739 and 1196 eV for C, N, O and Ne, respectively. From this plot, it is clear that, in order to have a significant opacity below 0.35 keV, a substantial fraction of the elements O and Ne must keep at least one L-shell electron, i.e., they are not ionized beyond O5+ and Ne7+. Note that O5+ and Ne+7 are also ions which produce major resonant UV absorption lines. The fact that resonant line absorption has a much larger cross section than photo-electric absorption (by a factor of order 104) suggests that the optical depth of the line absorption is much larger than the absorption edge in the soft X-ray band if OVI and NeVIII are responsible for the X-ray absorption. The large absorption in the soft X-rays at energies as low as 0.3 keV requires that OVI and NeVIII absorption lines in the X-ray absorbing gas must be optically very thick. This general result is not strongly dependent on the specific SED or on the relative metal abundances of O and Ne. A detailed ionization calculation (see below) shows that in photo-ionization equilibrium a substantial fraction of CIV and NV should also exist in this case.

For the calculations a plane-parallel geometry is adopted and the ionizing continuum for average radio-quiet quasars illuminates one side. A typical column density of $`10^{23.5}`$ cm-2 is assumed. The ionization equilibrium is determined by using the photoionization code CLOUDY 94.01 (Ferland 1999). Figure 4 shows the ionization structure of the elements carbon, nitrogen, oxygen and neon for an ionization parameters UH=10. In this plot, C3+, N+4, O+5, Ne+6, and Ne+7 coexist over a very large region. The opacity at energies between 0.1keV and 0.35 keV are mainly due to the ions O+5, Ne+7 and Ne+6.

The transmitted continua are plotted in Fig. 5 for UH = 8,10, and 16. A substantial Lyman edge is seen only in the first case, but a substantial HeII edge at 54.4 eV is present in all cases. This is because in a gas ionized by a typical AGN-continuum, $`He^{++}/He^+10^{3.2}U_H`$. This means that the column density of $`He^+`$ is larger than that of H0 by a factor of nearly 10 in a fully ionized gas. It can be seen that only when U$`{}_{H}{}^{}`$10 for the given column density, a large fraction of the soft X-rays between 0.2-0.3 keV can be absorbed. This corresponds to $`U_X0.29`$, which is roughly consistent with that derived from the X-ray spectral fits for PG 1411+442. The soft X-ray opacity between 0.1 to 0.3 keV is mainly caused by OVI, NeVII, and NeVIII ions, whose abundances are very sensitive to UH, as can be seen in the figure.

Table 1 shows the predicted column densities for UH = 10 and UH = 8. As one can see from the table, the absorber can certainly predict a large column density in ions producing the major UV absorption lines within the allowed range of ionization parameters. At UH=10, the model predicts CIV and NV column densities close to the total column densities estimated from strong BALs, and an OVI column density much larger than previously estimated based on the UV absorption line. An even larger column density is produced for NeVIII lines. Further, the column density of neutral hydrogen is an order of magnitude higher than required by Ly$`\alpha `$ absorption. Since the column densities of these ions of CIV, NV, OVI and NeVII increase rapidly with decreasing ionization parameters and UH = 10 is an upper limit imposed by requiring strong absorption in the 0.2-0.35 keV band, the above column densities represent only lower limits.

Since both, Ly$`\alpha `$ absorption and the Lyman edge, are sensitive to the exact value of the ionization parameter and the metal abundances, the lower limit for the ionization parameter can be dramatically relaxed for much higher metal abundances or a very steep ionizing continuum. Since the fraction of neutral hydrogen is only proportional to $`U_H^1`$, the reduction of the fraction of hydrogen by an order of magnitude, while keeping the X-ray opacity constant would require the ratio $`U_H`$ to $`U_x`$ to be ten times larger, implying a very steep UV to X-ray spectrum $`\alpha _{uvx}2.3`$. This seems very unlikely in view of the results of 1411+442, where 1350Å to 1 keV spectral index $`\alpha _{uvx}=1.55_{0.33}^{+0.20}`$ when corrected for the intrinsic absorption (see section 2). If the metal abundances are one order of magnitude higher, the hydrogen column can be lower by a similar factor, because the absorption in the X-ray band is mainly due to metal elements.

In order to see how the predicted column densities change with the assumed hydrogen column density, we calculated similar models for $`N_H=10^{22.5}`$ and 1023 cm-2. The density and ionizing continuum were the same as used in the previous calculations. In order to limit the transmitted 0.2-0.3 keV flux to less than 30% of the primary, the ionization parameters ($`U_H`$) had to be less than 1.4 and 3.6 for $`N_H=10^{22.5}`$ and 1023 cm-2, respectively. For these $`U_H`$’s, the predicted column densities of C3+, N4+, O5+, Ne6+, and Ne7+ are similar to those of the $`N_H=10^{23.5}`$ cm-2 case (see Table 1), as expected. We did not calculate the column density for the $`N_H=10^{24}`$ cm-2 model since the escape probability approximation used in Cloudy may result in an incorrect ionization structure (Dumont, Abrassart & Collin 2000). But the argument presented at the beginning of this section suggests that the ion column densities should be similar.

Although our calculations are only carried out for a one-component model, more complicated models, such as multiple-zone models, should produce strong CIV, NV, OVI absorption lines as well. In order to isolate the zone which produces the absorption lines, we considered a two-zone model. The X-rays at energies at $`>`$0.35 keV are absorbed by a high column, highly ionized absorber, in which the C, N, O atoms are ionized beyond CIV, NV, OVI, and at lower energies by a low column density, low ionization material. Since the high ionization zone contributes little to the X-ray absorption below 0.35 keV, the opacity below 0.35 keV has to be dominated by the low ionization material. The main contribution to the opacity between 0.2-0.4 keV is from N, O, and Ne at moderately high ionization parameters, and from He at low ionization parameters, when $`He^+`$ is the dominating species. In the former case, an argument similar to the one given at the beginning of this section suggests large absorbing column densities in CIV, NV, OVI, NeVII and NeVIII. In the latter case, a large optical depth at the Lyman limit is predicted, and strong absorption by lines from low ionization species such as OIII, CIII, NIV, etc. seems inevitable.

### 4.2. Emission Lines

Absorption lines can only trace the outflowing material along the line of sight, while information on the global distribution of the gas has to be deduced by other means. Emission lines represent one such tool.

From the ionization structures given by the above calculations it is clear that the X-ray absorbing gas cannot contribute much to the emission lines from low ionization species. The line emission, unlike the ionization structure, depends critically on the particle density as well as on the EUV and soft X-ray spectral slope. For a density of 109 cm-3 and UH = 10, the model predicts EWs of 31Å for OVI $`\lambda `$1032Å and 21Å for the NeVIII $`\lambda `$770/780Å emission line, for a covering factor of 1.0. These values are a factor of two and three higher than the average EWs for these lines measured by HST (Hamann et al. 1998). The line EWs increase to 77Å for OVI and 39Å for Ne VIII for UH = 8. The absorber can make a significant contribution to the emission of NeVIII and OVI unless it covers only a small fraction of the solid angle or the density of the gas is small. In fact, Hamann et al. (1998) discussed already the possibility of NeVIII emitting gas associated with the warm absorber in the X-ray band. Hamann et al. (1998) found that the NeVIII lines are significantly broader than CIV in PKS 0355-483 and PG 1522+101. From their figures, the line widths extend over the velocity range seen in typical BAL QSOs.

## 5. COMPARISON WITH OBSERVATIONS

PG 1411+442: Since the residual fluxes in the CIV and NV absorption troughs are similar to the fraction of the unabsorbed X-ray flux, Wang et al. (1999) argued that they are severely saturated at the bottom, but the observed residuals are the leaked light. This makes any estimate of the total column densities of CIV and NV very difficult and only lower limits can be derived. The minimum column densities required to reproduce the observed CIV and NV absorption features are of the order of $`10^{16}`$ cm-2 for C3+ and N4+, and thus, are consistent with the expected lower limits to the column densities of these ions from the X-ray absorber estimated in section 4. The SiIV absorption line appears not to be saturated in this object; a column density of 2 1014 cm-2 (EW$``$ 6Å) is derived. Substantial SiIV can be present only in the zone where the carbon is dominated by CIV or lower stages. The ionization parameter ($`U_H5`$) is lower than the upper limit set by the soft X-ray absorption in the last section in order to reproduce the SiIV absorption line for the column of 2 1023 cm-2 derived from the X-ray absorption. This results in a higher column density (1016-17 cm-2) of HI for cosmic abundances, and higher CIV and NV column densities. The box-shaped profile with substantial residual flux in the $`Ly\alpha `$ absorption line trough suggest that the absorption line is saturated, but the covering factor is smaller than 1 ($``$ 0.8). Thus, the observed HI column density can be consistent with the expectation from the X-ray absorber. The lower covering factor (0.8) may be due to the partially covering of the broad emission line region by the absorbing gas as part of Lyman emission line may be produced in a region more extended than CIV emission region. Thus, in PG 1411+442, the observed UV and X-ray data are consistent with a uniformly covered absorber model. Notice that the situation should be similar for other BAL QSOs with saturated absorption line troughs.

PG 1001+054: If the intrinsic broad band spectrum of this object is similar to other radio quiet AGN, i.e., $`\alpha _{ox}=1.65`$, the detected soft X-ray component can not be the transmitted one as it is rather steep. Most likely, we have a similar scenario as in PG 1411+442. The fraction of scattering is comparable, a few percent. Since the residual flux in the CIV absorption line in this object is more than 30% of the continuum, even at the deepest part of the trough, the observed profile implies either that the optically thick absorbing material is leaky and covers less than 70% of the sky or that the gas is not optically thick to the continuum photons. With the latter assumption, the total column density in CIV ions is estimated to be $``$2 $`10^{15}`$ cm-2 (EW$``$13Å). Since the ROSAT spectrum is very steep, no leaking component is seen, not even in the hard band of the ROSAT PSPC, and therefore an absorption column density of at least a few times 1022 cm-2 is required for X-ray absorber. Similarly, to keep sufficient opacity in the low energy soft X-ray band requires that a substantial fraction of O and Ne atoms must be at ionization stages equal to or lower than OVI and NeVIII. If the continuum is not too different from the average quasar SED, the X-ray absorber would produce column densities of a few 1016 cm-2 for CIV and NV (see table 1). This number is much larger than that inferred from the UV absorption lines. The discrepancy can hardly be explained by source variability as one needs a factor of 10 brighter X-ray emission in order to match 30% residuals in the absorption line trough, considering the fact that statistically no BAL QSOs show strong X-ray emission. Although we cannot rule out that an agreement can be achieved by using a completely different ionizing continuum, that of Mathews & Ferland (1987) with a bump in the EUV still predicts a column density in CIV $`>10^{16}`$ cm-2 if the transmitted flux between 0.2-0.3 keV is less than 30%. For a power law spectrum for the EUV ( from 13.6 eV to 0.2 keV ) ionizing continuum, the spectral index $`\alpha `$ ($`f_\nu \nu ^\alpha `$) is required to be larger than 2.2 in order to match the observed CIV column density. This seems unlikely in view of our discussion presented in section 2.

Therefore, we prefer a picture in which an optically thick absorber partially covers the UV continuum source. There are two different type pictures for the partial covering. In the first case, the X-ray absorbing material only partially covers the UV continuum emission region, but fully covers the X-ray continuum region. This means that the UV emission region is significantly larger than the X-ray emission region. However, it requires that the absorbing material is close to the central source. This seems unlikely as the NV absorption line profile indicates that the BAL gas is located at a distance at least as large as the emission line region.

An alternative picture is that the line absorption at a given velocity is saturated but the absorbing material at the velocity only partially covers the line of sight to the continuum source, resulting in an apparently low column density in the absorption line. In order to explain the nearly complete absorption in the soft X-ray band, we require that the global covering factor of the absorber, via integrating the covering factor at different velocities, is equal or very close to unity. This can be realized by allowing the material at different velocities to intersect the line of sight to different parts of the continuum. The partial covering at a given velocity is either due a patchy absorber with covering factor of less than one or due to continuous outflow with cross section smaller than the continuum source. One consequence of this kind of model is that the covering factor at any specific velocity is dependent on the angle between the line of sight and the iso-velocity surface. In the clouds model, larger viewing angle produces larger covering factor since more clouds on the iso-velocity surface enter the line sight to the continuum source. The opposite behavior is predicted for the small cross-section outflow model since the covering factor at a specific velocity in this case is the projected area of the iso-velocity surface onto the line of sight to the UV continuum divided by the area of the UV emission region, which decreases with the viewing angle. With this picture, the different covering factor of PG 1411+442 and PG 1001+054 might be just due to an aspect effect, instead of intrinsically different covering factor of this absorber. Future X-ray observation of the photo-electric iron K edges should be able to reveal such velocity dependent partially covering features.

It is worthwhile to point out that the situation for the ROSAT undetected low redshift bright QSOs with shallow BAL troughs is similar to that of PG 1001+054. However, this is hard to confirm for high redshift BAL QSOs because the 0.2-0.35 keV band is shifted out of the ROSAT windows. Due to strong Galactic absorption below 0.1 keV, future missions more sensitive at soft X-rays might also have difficulties to settle this question for the BAL QSOs beyond redshifts of 1.5.

SBS 1542+541: This is one of the highly ionized UV absorption line BAL QSO. The CIV and NV absorption lines are weak, but absorption lines from OVI or higher ionization stage ions are strong. The optical to X-ray spectral slope was found to be $`\alpha _{ox}=1.86`$ using ROSAT data (Telfer et al. 1998), which is significantly smaller than the value found for other BAL QSOs. The S/N ratio of the ROSAT data is too low to allow detailed spectral fits. Since the ionization of BAL gas is much higher than conventionally observed in other BAL QSOs, it is likely that the ionization parameter is also higher in this object, and thus, it appears possible that a directly transmitted continuum is detected by ROSAT. Given the redshift of z = 2.361 for this object, ROSAT actually measured the continuum in the 0.4-8.0 keV band in the rest frame of the QSO. The transmission of X-rays at medium energies is not very sensitive to the exact value of the ionization parameter and is only a function of the total column density, provided that the ionization parameter is not too high. Telfer et al. (1998) proposed an ionization dependent covering factor model to explain the strengths of UV absorption lines for cosmic abundances. The covering factor of low ionization ionic species such as HI is much smaller than those of high ionization species (up to 80%). But they did not make any specific statement about the global covering factor of the gas. This model is consistent with the ROSAT data for this source. However, if we want to extend this model to other BAL QSOs, such as PG 1001+043, we have to require that the total covering of the absorber is close to unity in order to explain their weakness in the ROSAT band as we proposed for PG 1001+054.

## 6. Conclusion

We show that the opacity of soft X-rays at energies between 0.2-0.35 keV is dominated by L-shell photo-electric absorption of oxygen and neon in the X-ray absorber of BAL QSOs. A stringent limit on the ionization parameter can be set by requiring presence of sufficient column densities for the ions responsible for the absorption in the soft X-ray band, namely, OVI, NeVII and NeVIII. For typical equivalent hydrogen column density of $`10^{23.5}`$ cm-2, the ionization parameter is required: $`U_x<(0.20.3)`$, or $`U_H<10`$ for the typical spectral energy distribution of radio-quiet QSOs. We find that the X-ray absorber has to have very large column densities in OVI, NeVII and NeVIII of the order of 1017-18 cm-2 in order to have sufficient opacity in the soft X-ray band. Since these column densities are derived from the observed optical depth in the soft X-ray band, they do not strongly depend on the specific ionization continuum and the detail metal abundance. For reasonable ionizing continuum, it will also produce large column densities in CIV, NV and HI of order a few 1016 cm-2.

These results are compared with the observed X-ray and UV spectra for several BAL QSOs with available soft X-ray data. In PG 1411+442, a uniformly covering absorption model can explain the observed UV and X-ray absorption. However, in PG 1001+054, the UV absorption lines predicted from the X-ray absorption are much stronger than the observed ones, if the X-ray absorption material uniformly covers the UV continuum source. The discrepancy can be solved by a locally partial covering model in which the thick flow or clouds at a specific velocity covers only a certain fraction of the line sight to the continuum, but the total covering factor of all clouds or the flow is close to 1. As the covering factor of the absorber at any specific projected velocity is strongly viewing angle dependent, this model has enough flexibility to produce the different BAL behaviors. This model might also apply to those BAL QSOs for which ROSAT yielded stringent upper limits on the X-ray flux but where the UV continuum is only partially absorbed.

Our work shows that, assuming the X-ray and UV absorbers being the same, self-consistent absorption models can be constructed to explain the X-ray and UV observations of the BAL QSOs treated herein; we thus suggest it as a promising case in BAL objects. However, future observations with a better sample and better quality data are need to draw firm conclusion on this, considering following caveats of the analysis presented in this paper: (1) The QSOs herein, and especially PG 1411+442, may not be representative of BAL QSOs. (2) the assumption that the intrinsic SEDs are like those observed in other non-BALQSOs used in deriving the observed CIV and OVI column density,

While the absorber can contribute significantly to the extremely highly ionized emission lines, such as O VI 1032/1037Å and Ne VIII 770/780Å if it covers a substantial fraction of solid angle and if the density is higher than $`10^8`$ cm-3, it has very little impact on the medium and low ionization UV lines such as NV, CIV and Ly$`\alpha `$. The profiles of NeVIII and OVI lines may be indicators for the kinematics of the X-ray absorber in QSOs. The observed Ne VIII line profiles in QSOs suggests that the velocity of the gas projected onto our line of sight is similar to that seen in the outflows of the UV BALs.

We thank S. Komossa for critical reading of this manuscript and an anonymous referee for helpful comments. TW acknowledges the financial support from Chinese NSF (19925313) and from the Chinese Science and Technology Ministry.