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Recent studies have shown that line profile distortions are commonly observedin gravitationally lensed quasar spectra. We investigate the effect ofgravitational microlensing on quasar broad emission line profiles and theirunderlying continuum, combining the emission from simple representative BLRmodels with generic microlensing magnification maps. Specifically, weconsidered Keplerian disk, polar, and equatorial wind BLR models of varioussizes. The effect of microlensing has been quantified with four observables:$\mu^{BLR}$, the total magnification of the broad emission line; $\mu^{cont}$,the magnification of the underlying continuum; as well as red/blue, RBI andwings/core, WCI, indices that characterize the line profile distortions. Thesimulations showed that distortions of line profiles, such as those recentlyobserved in lensed quasars, can indeed be reproduced and attributed to thedifferential effect of microlensing on spatially separated regions of the BLR.While the magnification of the emission line $\mu^{BLR}$ sets an upper limit onthe BLR size and, similarly, the magnification of the continuum $\mu^{cont}$sets an upper limit on the size of the continuum source, the line profiledistortions mainly depend on the BLR geometry and kinematics. We thus built(WCI,RBI) diagrams that can serve as diagnostic diagrams to discriminatebetween the various BLR models on the basis of quantitative measurements. Itappears that a strong microlensing effect puts important constraints on thesize of the BLR and on its distance to the high-magnification caustic. In thatcase, BLR models with different geometries and kinematics are more prone toproduce distinctive line profile distortions for a limited number of causticconfigurations, which facilitates their discrimination.

Constraining the geometry and kinematics of the quasar broad emission line region using gravitational microlensing. I. Models and simulations