FR II broad absorption line quasars and the life cycle of quasars

By combining the Sloan Digitized Sky Survey Third Data Release quasar list with the VLA FIRST survey, we have found five new objects having both broad absorption lines (BALs) in their optical spectra and FR II radio morphologies. We identify an additional example of this class from the FIRST Bright Quasar Survey, J1408+3054. Including the two previously known FR II-BAL quasars, J1016+5209 and LBQS 1138-0126, brings the number of such objects to eight. These quasars are relatively rare; finding this small handful has required the 45,000 large quasar sample of SDSS. The FR II-BAL quasars exhibit a significant anticorrelation between radio-loudness and the strength of the BAL features. This is easily accounted for by the evolutionary picture, in which quasars emerge from cocoons of BAL-producing material that stifle the development of radio jets and lobes. There is no such simple explanation for the observed properties of FR II-BALs in the unification-by-orientation model of quasars. The rarity of the FR II-BAL class implies that the two phases do not coexist for very long in a single quasar, perhaps less than 105 yr,with the combined FR II, high-ionization broad absorption phase being even shorter by another factor of 10 or more.