A census of quasar-intrinsic absorption in the Hubble Space Telescope archive: systems from high-resolution echelle spectra

We present a census of z abs 2 intrinsic (those showing partial coverage) and associated (z abs ∼ z em) quasar absorption-line systems detected in the Hubble Space Telescope archive of Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph echelle spectra. This work complements the Misawa et al. survey of 2 < z em < 4 quasars that selects systems using similar techniques. We confirm the existence of so-called strong N v intrinsic systems (where the equivalent width of H i Lyα is small compared to N v λ1238) presented in that work, but find no convincing cases of 'strong C iv' intrinsic systems at low redshift/luminosity. Moreover, we also report on the existence of 'strong O vi' systems. From a comparison of partial coverage results as a function of ion, we conclude that systems selected by the N v ion have the highest probability of being intrinsic. By contrast, the C iv and O vi ions are poor selectors. Of the 30 O vi systems tested, only two of the systems in the spectrum on 3C 351 show convincing evidence for partial coverage. However, there is an ∼3σ excess in the number of absorbers near the quasar redshift (|Δv| ≤ 5000 km s−1) over absorbers at large redshift differences. In at least two cases, the associated O vi systems are known not to arise close to the accretion disc of the quasar.