10 SALT spectra of HE 0435-4312

We aim to determine the substructure and the variability of the MgII line with the aim to identify which part of the line comes from a medium in Keplerian motion. Using the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) with the Robert Stobie Spectrograph (RSS) we performed ten spectroscopic observations of quasar HE 0435-4312 (z=1.2231) over a period of three years (Dec 23/24, 2012 to Dec 7/8, 2015).

Both the MgII line and the FeII pseudo-continuum increase with time. We clearly detect the systematic shift of the MgII line with respect to the FeII over the years, corresponding to the acceleration of 104+/-14km/s/year in the quasar rest frame. The MgII line shape is clearly non-Gaussian but single-component, and the increase in line equivalent width and line shift is not accompanied with significant evolution of the line shape.