The following research will be carried out: (1) A survey of radio wavelength emitting quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) will be carried out in an attempt to understand the statistics and characteristics of strong carbon line absorption in the spectra of radio-loud QSOs. (2) An extensive complete survey for QSOs will be conducted using computer generated selection criteria based upon digitized scans of the United Kingdom Schmidt Telescope objective prism plates. (3) The Multiple Mirror Telescope Echelle Spectrograph will be used in an attempt to observe absorption in the fine-structure lines of the ultraviolet multiplets of the carbon line in moderate redshift QSOs in order to measure or set limits on the cosmic microwave background temperature at early epochs. These and other moderate- and high-resolution spectroscopic data will be used as diagnostic probes of the conditions in QSO absorption line regions. (4) The Echelle Spectrograph on the Kitt Peak National Observatory 4-m telescope will be used to observe line profiles in high redshift QSOs. (5) A search will be made for quasars near the line-of-sight of extremely low surface brightness galaxies. (6) A fraction of blazars in a complete radio sample will be studied to test unified models of radio sources involving relativistic beams. The energetics of individual beamed sources will be studied using the energy distributions in the fluxes observed in the X-ray to radio wavelength region of the spectra.
