HeI* in broad absorption line QSOs

This suggests that HeI* BALs could be detected in most MgII LoBAL quasars, provided the spectra S/N is high enough. Such a surprisingly high HeI* BAL fraction is actually predicted from photoionization calculations based on a simple BAL model. The result indicates that HeI* absorption lines can be used to search for BAL quasars at low z, which cannot be identified by ground-based optical spectroscopic surveys with commonly seen UV absorption lines.

Using HeI*{lambda}3889, we discovered 19 BAL quasars at z<0.3 from the available SDSS spectral database. The fraction of HeI* BAL quasars is similar to that of LoBAL objects.