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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 26 May 2016
Some intervening C IV absorbers in the Keck/HIRES spectrum of APM 0827+5255 give rise to absorption lines for which the observed optical depths for the doublet components are not in the expected 2 : 1 ratio. We model this effect as coverage of one line of sight to this gravitationally lensed quasar and perform a set of simulations to select a sample of lines for which our model provides an explanation for the effect. We use lines in this sample to obtain estimates for minimum absorber sizes from total coverage and the separations of the lines of sight for a range of lens redshifts, z1, and two cosmologies. We also obtain best estimates for overall sizes from a statistical “hit and miss” approach. For z1 = 0.7 our results set a lower limit to sizes of C IV absorbers of ~ 0.3 h−172 kpc (~ 0.5 h−172 kpc) for ΩM = 1, ΩA = 0 (ΩM = 0.3, ΩA = 0.7).