Tracing dark energy with quasars
  The nature of dark energy, driving the accelerated expansion of the Universe,
is one of the most important issues in modern astrophysics. In order to
understand this phenomenon, we need precise astrophysical probes of the
universal expansion spanning wide redshift ranges. Quasars have recently
emerged as such a probe, thanks to their high intrinsic luminosities and, most
importantly, our ability to measure their luminosity distances independently of
redshifts. Here we report our ongoing work on observational reverberation
mapping using the time delay of the Mg II line, performed with the South
African Large Telescope (SALT).
