Quasar Absorption Lines is a two-volume set of textbooks that is the product of more than a decade of research and synthesis.  These books provide the most comprehensive and detailed treatment of the topic of quasar absorption lines compiled into a single resource, including its historical development, scientific findings, theoretical foundations, and methods of analysis. 

This site contains supplementary material for this powerful resource, including lecture slides, review questions for lesson planning and self-review, problem sets and practical exercises, a supporting tutorial video library, an online discussion forum, and documentation of errata. 

Volume 1 chronicles six decades of quasar spectroscopy. The book details the nature of the Ly-alpha forest, Lyman limit systems, damped Ly-alpha absorbers, deuterium (D/H), 21-cm absorbers, HI and HeII Reionization, the WHIM, and the multiple ionization phases of metal line absorbers. Galaxies and their connections to these absorbers are treated in depth, as are the taxonomy and classes of AGN/quasar spectra and their associated absorption lines. 

Volume 2 treats the theory and analysis of absorption lines, including the physics of atomic transitions, gas and ionization physics, the cosmological model, radiative transfer, spectrograph design, analysis of spectra, and multi-component, multiphase chemical-ionization modeling. Pragmatic approaches to conducting and assessing absorber counts in large absorption line surveys is presented. Throughout, objective analysis methods are emphasized and presented for clarity of practical application.