Studies of Quasi-Stellar Objects and Related Active Systems

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In recent years the availability of new detectors, especially charge-coupled detectors (CCDs), on large telescopes has made possible more detailed and revealing studies of quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) and related galaxies than was possible in the past. For the first time observers have begun to see extensive interactions between theoreticists and observers concerning the nature of the central energy sources. In the past, the major connection between theoretical work and observational results had been in the area of modeling the emission line regions, but recent observational work has provided more information about the nature of the central objects themselves. For example, considerable effort has been spent on understanding the continuum energy distribution in terms of the radiation expected from an accretion disk. Recently, researchers have taken another approach to obtaining observational insights into the structure of active galaxies and QSOs: the use of spectropolarimetry and imaging polarimetry to derive information not obtainable by conventional spectroscopic methods. In the past four years a new polarimeter which uses a CCD for a detector and has been put into a operation and the performance has been excellent. This new spectropolarimeter will be used to conduct observations of QSOs and related galaxies.