We have obtained HST and ground-based spectrophotometry of a sample of ~61 radio-loud quasars from shortward of Lyα to longward of Hβ. The aim was to investigate the dependence of quasar properties on orientation of the central engine axis to the observer’s line of sight. As an approximate measure of inclination we use the radio core-dominance, i.e., the ratio of beamed radiocore emission to the emission in the extended lobes at 5 GHz rest frequency. About half the radio sources have core-dominance greater than unity (jet or axis pointed close to our line of sight). Quasar pairs were matched in radio lobe luminosity and redshift to reduce bias caused by strong dependences on intrinsic luminosity.

Observation and reduction techniques were standard, and the spectral resolution is equivalent to 230–400 km s−1 (Wills et al. 1993). We have performed correlation analyses among emission-line and continuum parameters, as well as spectral principal-component analyses (SPCA, Francis et al. 1992).

We are analyzing the emission lines and continuum spectra of a sample of ~61 radio-loud quasars to investigate dependences amongst various spectral, radio, and X-ray parameters, in particular to look for dependences of spectral properties on inclination of the the radio-jet axis (Wills et al. 1997).

We have carried out conventional correlation analyses, as well as spectral principal-component analyses (SPCA) as described in the previous paper (Wills et al. 1997). We found that the single largest contribution to the spectrum-tospectrum variations was from a component — the ‘first principal component’ (PC1) — that has a more UV (or less red) continuum than the mean spectrum, and a weaker narrow-line (NLR) spectrum. The ‘second principal component’ (PC2) accounts for only 8–12% of the spectrum-to-spectrum variation, contributing a weaker UV, and stronger red continuum, and showing stronger narrow emission lines. There is also a tendency for the broad (BLR) lines in the second principal component spectrum to be narrower (note the sharper He II λ1640 and [O III] λ1663 features redward of the stronger C IV λ1549 emission line, and perhaps a narrow component of the N V λ1240 line redward of Lyα).

Recent observations with HST and HUT have been made of the spectral region shortward of Lyα in AGN. Emission lines in this region, such as O VIλ1035 and Ne VIIIλ774, are mainly produced by collisional excitation. Their strengths and the lack of other significant emission lines of higher excitation energy indicate a temperature of ~ 6 × 104 K for the highly ionized gas in line-emitting clouds. Model calculations suggest that the strength of O VI and Ne vIII emission is correlated to the intensity of the high-energy photons above 100 eV. Therefore, these lines are useful diagnostics of the continuum shape in the soft X-ray range. The luminosity dependence of emission-line equivalent widths is more prominent for lines of higher ionization level, suggesting that the UV bump in AGN spectra may be weaker at higher luminosities.

I Zw 1 is a well-known narrow-line quasar with very strong Fe II emission. High S/N spectra obtained with the HST FOS show a remarkably rich emission-line spectrum. The C III*λ1176 line is clearly detected in emission for the first time in AGNs. This line arises from radiative decay to the 2s2p3Pº0,1,2 metastable levels of C III. The observed flux is ~ 50 times larger than expected from collisional excitation or dielectronic recombination in photoionized gas. The most plausible mechanism for the large enhancement in the C III* λ1176 flux is resonance scattering of continuum photons by C III* ions. This mechanism requires large velocity gradients (~ 1000 km s−1) within each emitting cloud in the BLR. Such large velocity gradients can be induced by forces external to the gas in the BLR clouds, such as tidal disruption, or radiation pressure.

We report on preliminary results of a program of rest-frame UV spectroscopy of z ≥ 4 QSOs. Despite their high luminosity and inherent youth, these objects exhibit spectra that are generally very similar to those of AGNs at lower z. We find some evidence that the z ≥ 4 systems are described by unusually strong O Iλ1304 emission, which may be a result of elevated metallicity or unusual prominence of the ‘intermediate-line region’. High metallicities are also signaled by strong N Vλ1240 emission, consistent with quasar behavior at z ≈ 2–3.

We have obtained near-IR, optical, and soft X-ray spectrophotometry for a number of bright quasars with 2 ≲ z ≲ 4. The observed ratios of Lyα/Hβ in this sample are smaller than Case B, and span a similar range to those seen at lower redshift. A correlation between the line width of Hβ and X-ray spectral index found for low-redshift PG quasars is also seen for the high-redshift objects.

Many years of study have failed to establish conclusively relationships between a quasar’s spectral energy distribution (SED) and the emission lines it is thought to produce. This is at least partially due to the lack of well-observed SEDs. We present initial results from a line–SED study for a sample of 43 quasars and active galaxies for which we have optical and ultraviolet spectra and far-infrared–X-ray SEDs. We present the results of tests for correlations between line equivalent widths and SED luminosity and slope parameters and compare these results to those from earlier studies. We find that the Baldwin effect is weaker when the luminosity is defined close to the ionizing continuum of that line and conclude that the detailed SED is likely to be important in making further progress.

Flat radio spectrum quasars from the Parkes half-Jansky survey show an enormous range of optical to near-IR colors. The spectra of these quasars suggest that this diversity is probably due to variable amounts of dust somewhere along the line of sight.

The ionization structures of AGNs are determined by the specific ionization mechanisms and the shapes of the ionizing continua. The technique of using emission-line intensity ratios to classify objects and investigate their ionization mechanisms is enhanced significantly by combining high-quality UV and optical spectrophotometry. The HST archive is an excellent source of such data.

The FOS spectra are recalibrated using the latest ‘average inverse sensitivity’ (AIS) calibration. This new method for flux calibrating FOS data (1) normalizes count data from all apertures to the 4”.3 aperture to account for changes of aperture throughput as a function of the Optical Telescope Assembly focus; (2) corrects the data for time-dependent detector sensitivity degradation; and (3) scales the data to the white-dwarf reference scale. The AIS calibration method has been developed over a period of several years, with improvements applied progressively based on observed deficiencies and/or discrepancies of the existing calibrations. Indeed, the final AIS calibration incorporates corrections in the wavelength overlap regions of adjacent gratings derived based on inconsistencies discovered as a result of this study of over 1000 FOS spectra.

Significant improvements in our understanding of the physical conditions in active galaxies requires the development of sophisticated models that can predict in detail the emission from the nucleus. Accurate measurements of both the UV continua and the many weak diagnostic UV lines provide critical calibrations for such models.

Rigorous comparisons of the HST FOS and IUE UV flux calibrations have so far been performed using spectrophotometric standard star spectra. These calibration observations have precision acquisition sequences and the spectra have very high S/N. Such data are not representative of typical FOS observations of an AGN, which often cannot be acquired with the same precision as standard stars, especially for pre-COSTAR data. Furthermore, the UV flux from a typical AGN is several magnitudes fainter than from a spectrophotometric standard star, and is more representative of typical non-stellar fluxes. Flux-dependent effects (in either FOS or IUE) may need to be considered at these lower flux levels.

I review what we have learned about the BLR from reverberation mapping, point to some problems and complications that have emerged, and outline some future directions.

We probe the structure and kinematics of Seyfert broad-line regions by using a velocity-delay map to fit simultaneously the observed variations in the continuum and the emission-line profiles. The velocity-delay map of C IVλ1550 emission constructed from 44 IUE spectra of NGC 4151 suggests virial motions, with 107M⊙ inside two light days. Pure inflow and outflow kinematics are ruled out by the approximate symmetry of the map. A stronger redshifted response at small delays suggests either a component with free-fall kinematics, or an outflow with CIV being emitted inward by optically thick gas clouds.

A detailed emission-line decomposition has been made from 15 years of observations with the IUE satellite of the highly variable Seyfert 1 galaxy Fairall 9, allowing us to study the line variability as a function of velocity and continuum brightness. The variability over the different velocity domains of the broad lines has been related to the continuum variability over a large wavelength domain from the X-rays to the infrared. Clear delays were established between the redshifted and blueshifted parts of the lines in Lyα and C IV, with the red sides of the lines responding faster with no delay and the blue sides responding with a delay of some 230 days. The observed spectral variability behavior of the continuum has been used as input for photoionization model calculations and the combined constraints from the models and differences for gas at different velocities define the structure and motions in the BLR.

We present the results of an analysis of the UV and X-ray variability of the broad-line radio galaxy 3C 390.3 over 15 years. The UV continuum of 3C 390.3 showed large variations with amplitudes of up to a factor of 10. The variations of C IV and Lyα are highly correlated with the UV continuum, and are delayed with respect to the continuum variations by 65-120 days with the red wing of both C IV and Lyα leading the blue wing, implying that the C IV and Lyα-emitting gas is infalling towards the center. The C IV/Lyα ratio is positively correlated with both the continuum flux and UV line strength. The overall UV/optical to X-ray spectrum can be described by a single power law with αuvx = 0.90. The behavior of C IV/Lyα variations might be related to this hard ionizing continuum in 3C 390.3.

We present 5 years of results from a spectrophotometric monitoring program of 28 quasars. The typical sampling intervals are several months. We show the light curves obtained for two quasars, PG 0804+762 and PG 0953+414. Both sources show Balmer emissionline variations which follow those of the continuum with a time lag of order 100 days. This is the first reliable measurement of such a lag in active galactic nuclei with luminosity L > 1045 erg s−1. The broad-line region (BLR) size that is implied is almost an order of magnitude larger than that measured in several Seyfert 1 galaxies and is consistent with the hypothesis that the BLR size grows as L0.5.

In late autumn 1994, the International AGN Watch started a multiwavelength monitoring campaign on 3C 390.3, the first radio-loud AGN to be selected for high temporal-resolution monitoring from the radio domain to X-ray energies. This AGN is is of particular interest since significant variations have been observed on both short and long time scales in both the line fluxes and line profiles (Barr et al. 1980, Veilleux & Zheng 1991).

In the optical, spectroscopic data and broad-band flux measurements in B, V, R, and I were obtained. The brightness of 3C 390.3 was calculated relative to the stars in the field. The R magnitudes are based on observations recorded at Calar Alto, Spain, in 1994 December. Generally, AGN spectra are intercalibrated using narrow forbidden emission lines since these lines can be taken as constant on time scales of decades (Peterson 1993). Since the [O III] λλ4959, 5007 flux is variable on time scales of several months (Zheng et al. 1995), these lines were studied in detail. We found that they were constant within ~2% during 1995 (Dietrich et al. 1996). The spectra were therefore intercalibrated by using the narrow forbidden emission lines. 3C 390.3 was also observed with IUE for 14 months (O’Brien et al. 1996) and with ROSAT for nine months in 1995 (Leighly et al. 1996). Radio data were also obtained during a 3-month MERLIN campaign.

We present light curves obtained during a seven-month monitoring campaign on 3C 390.3. The source steadily increased by about 0.5 mag from 1995 July to October.

An eight-month spectrscopic monitoring campaign on the Seyfert 1 galaxy Fairall 9 has been carried out with the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE) in order to measure continuum-continuum and continuum-emission-line delays for a high-luminosity active galactic nucleus (AGN). The results are consistent with those of previous campaigns on lower luminosity AGNs: (i) there is no measurable time lag between different ultraviolet continuum bands, (ii) the measured time lags for the emission lines are relatively short, and (iii) the more rapid and stronger response to continuum changes of He II, as compared to C IV, is consistent with a stratified broad-line region (BLR) structure.

Since 1986, we have carried out spectral monitoring of several Seyfert galaxies with the 6-m telescope of SAO RAS to study the structure and kinematics of the broad-line regions (BLR). Here we present the observational results for NGC 4151 and 3C 390.3.

In 1986–96, about 150 spectra of the NGC 4151 nucleus were obtained with SP124+TV scanner and 24 spectra with a long-slit (UAGS+CCD) or a multipupil field spectrograph (MPFS + CCD). About 20 spectra of 3C 390.3 were obtained in 1995–96 with the UAGS + CCD and with MPFS + CCD. More detailed information about observations, data processing and results will appear in Shapovalova et al. (1996).

We present a long-term variability study of the Seyfert 1 galaxies Mkn 110 and NGC 7603. Both objects show strong variations over a period of several years.