Optical/Ultraviolet Continuum Emission Theory in Radio Quiet Quasars and Active Galactic Nuclei

Abstract

Accretion disk models still do not provide a satisfactory explanation of the optical/ultraviolet continuum observed in Seyferts and quasars. Substantial theoretical progress has been made in understanding one aspect of the problem: the dearth of spectral features at the Lyman limit. Promising solutions have also been proposed to explain the surprising observations of large polarization in the Lyman continuum observed in some sources. I review the recent progress in this field, and try to point out future research directions which would be fruitful in trying to obtain a complete, self-consistent model of the continuum emitting regions.