Evidence supporting the view that the clouds giving rise to the broad emission lines (BELs) of QSOs are confined by the pressure of an expanding thermal gas, and that a flux of relativistic particles whose luminosity is comparable to that of the photon luminosity streams through this gas, is considered. The resulting heating and momentum deposition produces a transonic thermal wind whose dynamic properties are calculated in detail. This wind accelerates and confines the emission line clouds, thereby producing the BEL profiles. A QSO emission line region characteristic size of about 1 pc is obtained, and is shown to depend on luminosity in such a way that the ionization parameter is approximately constant over a wide luminosity range. An X-ray luminosity due to thermal bremsstrahlung of 1-10% of the optical luminosity is another consequence of the model.
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Weymann et al. (1982) studied this question.