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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 August 2017
The possibility that quasars are activated by interactions between galaxies has received considerable attention following the discovery of extended emission surrounding many low and moderate redshift quasars, and the distored morphological appearances of some of these extensions. We have obtained high resolution narrow-band optical images of the field of the low-redshift quasar MR2251-178 which reveal, in addition to nebulosity closely associated with the quasar, diffuse line-emitting regions separated by up to 100 kpc from the nucleus but kinematically associated with it. We attribute these regions to density perturbations of the gaseous envelope or disc now known to rotate about this quasar, caused by a tidal interaction between the quasar and a nearby active galaxy in the same cluster. Limits of between 2–4 × 108 years can be placed on the time elapsed since this interaction.