The Effect of Abundance Variations on Estimates of the Densities of Broad-Line Region Clouds in Quasars

There has been a long-standing discrepancy between the densities deduced from studies of the variability of quasar emission lines and those inferred from standard photoionization analyses. We have found that the higher metal abundances now believed to be present in most quasars lead to the higher densities being predicted by photoionization models. We explain why this is so.