Tremaine, ScottShen, YueLiu, XinLoeb, Abraham2019-09-242014Tremaine, Scott, Yue Shen, Xin Liu, and Abraham Loeb. 2014. “RELATIVISTIC REDSHIFTS IN QUASAR BROAD LINES.” The Astrophysical Journal 794 (1): 49. https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/794/1/49.0004-637X1538-4357http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:HUL.InstRepos:41393193The broad emission lines commonly seen in quasar spectra have velocity widths of a few percent of the speed of light, so special- and general-relativistic effects have a significant influence on the line profile. We have determined the redshift of the broad H beta line in the quasar rest frame (determined from the core component of the [0 III]line) for over 20,000 quasars from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey Data Release 7 quasar catalog. The mean redshift as a function of line width is approximately consistent with the relativistic redshift that is expected if the line originates in a randomly oriented Keplerian disk that is obscured when the inclination of the disk to the line of sight exceeds 30-45, consistent with simple active galactic nucleus unification schemes. This result also implies that the net line-of-sight inflow/outflow velocities in the broad-line region are much less than the Keplerian velocity when averaged over a large sample of quasars with a given line width.en-USJournal Article2019-09-2410.1088/0004-637X/794/1/49