Bloated stars as AGN broad-line clouds: the emission-line spectrum

Abstract

The Bloated Stars Scenario proposes that AGN broad line emission originates in the winds or envelopes of bloated stars (BS). Its main advantage over BLR cloud models is the gravitational confinement of the gas and its major difficulty the large estimated number of BSs and resulting high mass loss rate. We calculate the emission line spectrum by a detailed numerical photoionization code for a wide range of wind structures and a detailed QSO nucleus model with L(ion)=7E45 erg/s, M(bh)=8E7 Mo. The size and boundary density of the wind are determined by various processes: Comptonization by the central ionizing source (calculated self consistently), tidal disruption by the black hole and the limit set by the wind's finite mass. We find that the emission spectrum is mainly determined by the conditions at the boundary of the line emitting fraction of the wind rather than by its internal structure. Comptonization results in very high ionization parameters at the boundary which produces an excess of unobserved broad high excitation forbidden lines. The finite mass constraint limits the wind size, increases the boundary density and thus improves the results. Slow decelerating mass-constrained flows with high gas densities (1E8-1E12 cm^-3) are as success- ful as clouds in reproducing the observed lines. Only 5E4 dense wind BSs are required in the inner 1/3 pc. This small fraction approaches that of super- giants (SG) in the solar neighborhood and the mass loss is consistent with the observational constraints. The BS number is a very sensitive function of the wind structure. SG-like BSs are ruled out by their high mass loss. BSs with dense winds can reproduce the BLR line spectrum and be supported by the stellar population without excessive mass loss and collisional destruction rates.