The CaFe Project: Optical Fe ii and Near-infrared Ca ii Triplet Emission in Active Galaxies. I. Photoionization Modeling

Optical Fe ii emission is a strong feature in quasar spectra originating in the broad-line region (BLR). The difficulty in understanding the complex Fe ii pseudo-continuum has led us to search for other reliable, simpler ionic species such as Ca ii. In this first part of the series, we confirm the strong correlation between the strengths of two emission features, the optical Fe ii and the NIR Ca ii, both from observations and photoionization modeling. With the inclusion of an up-to-date compilation of observations with both optical Fe ii and NIR Ca ii measurements, we span a wider and more extended parameter space and confirm the common origin of these two spectral features with our photoionization models using CLOUDY. Taking into account the effect of dust into our modeling, we constrain the BLR parameter space (primarily in terms of the ionization parameter and local cloud density) as a function of the strengths of Fe ii and Ca ii emission.