Cold Accretion Disks and Lineless Quasars
  The optical-UV continuum of quasars is broadly consistent with the emission
from a geometrically thin optically thick accretion disk (AD). The AD produces
the ionizing continuum which powers the broad and narrow emission lines. The
maximum AD effective temperature is given by Teff=fmax(Mdot/M^2)^1/4, where M
is the black hole mass, Mdot the accretion rate, and fmax is set by the black
hole spin a_*. For a low enough value of Mdot/M^2 the AD may become too cold to
produce ionizing photons. Such an object will form a lineless quasar. This
occurs for a local blackbody (BB) AD with a luminosity Lopt=10^46 erg/s for
M>3.6E9 Msun, when a_*=0, and for M>1.4E10 Msun, when a_*=0.998. Using the AD
based Mdot, derived from M and Lopt, and the reverberation based M, derived
from Lopt and the Hbeta FWHM, v, gives Teff \propto Lopt^-0.13v^-1.45. Thus,
Teff is mostly set by v. Quasars with a local BB AD become lineless for v>
8,000 km/s, when a_*=0, and for v> 16,000 km/s, when a_*=0.998. Higher values
of v are required if the AD is hotter than a local BB. The AD becoming
non-ionizing may explain why line emitting quasars with v>10,000 km/s are rare.
Weak low ionization lines may still be present if the X-ray continuum is
luminous enough, and such objects may form a population of weak emission line
quasars (WLQ). If correct, such WLQ should show a steeply falling SED at
lambda<1000A. Such an SED was observed by Hryniewicz et al. in SDSS
J094533.99+100950.1, a WLQ observed down to 570A, which is well modeled by a
rather cold AD SED. UV spectroscopy of z~1-2 quasars is required to eliminate
potential intervening Lyman limit absorption by the intergalactic medium (IGM),
and to explore if the SEDs of lineless quasars and some additional WLQ are also
well fit by a cold AD SED.
