Double troughs in broad absorption line quasars and Ly-alpha-N V line-locking

It was investigated whether the double trough (DT) structure in the mean C IV BAL trough reported by Weymann et al. (1991) is real or due to statistical fluctuations of BAL troughs over random outflow velocities in a limited sample. A sample of 72 BAL QSOs with C IV BAL troughs was analyzed. It is found that only 22 percent of the sample explicitly exhibits the DT feature; when present the DTs are deep. A Monte Carlo simulation of the mean C IV BAL suggests that the DT feature is real at only the 95-98 percent level.