Revised FBQS 1408 paper submitted

Today I submitted this revised paper to MNRAS. The gist of the paper is shown in the animated gif below. The animation shows the spectrum of the BAL quasar FBQS 1408+3054 from 1995 to 2009 (black curves are data, grey curves are interpolations). Note that starting sometime after 2000, the Fe II absorption starts to go away. (more below animation)



The disappearing Fe II absorber is even more remarkable when historical photographic-plate photometry is taken into account. That photometry shows that this quasar is consistent with having been an FeLoBAL quasar for 50 years before its Fe II absorber vanished over a period of 5 years. That history is shown schematically in the animated gif below (which takes a while to run).



(Other activities today so far included submission of merit exercise paperwork to York and going around and introducing myself to some of the grad students and postdocs here at OSU and asking about their research.)