The redshifts of quasars

Abstract

It has been shown that no correlation exists between the inferred ejection velocities of quasar absorption lines and the intrinsic continuum flux. In the absence of a net force on the absorbing clouds this disproves intrinsic models which rely on radiative acceleration for the production of these lines.It has also been shown that there is a statistically significant excess of quasar alignments over that expected at a specific deviation (four arc - seconds) of the central object from the line defined by the outlying members. The narrowness of this peak makes it difficult to explain as the product of simple quasar clustering.Observation at high spectral resolution om two quasars lying in such alignments has shown no significant deviations of the absorption line distribution from the norm. Assuming that this is true for all such objects and that a significant proportion of the quasar redshift is gravitational then the observed upper limits on the rate of change of absorption line redshifts has enabled lower bounds to be placed upon the central mass. The derived masses are very large and apparently in conflict with galactic stability arguments.Number / magnitude distributions have been determined for two samples of quasar candidates which were previously uncalibrated.