  This program is part of QUEST (Quasar/ULIRG Evolutionary Study) and seeks to
examine the gaseous environments of z < 0.3 quasars and ULIRGs as a function of
host galaxy properties and age across the merger sequence from ULIRGs to
quasars. This first paper in the series focuses on 33 quasars from the QUEST
sample and on the kinematics of the highly ionized gas phase traced by the N V
1238, 1243 A and O VI 1032, 1038 A absorption lines in high-quality Hubble
Space Telescope (HST) Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) data. N V and O VI
outflows are present in about 60% of the QUEST quasars and span a broad range
of properties, both in terms of equivalent widths (from 20 mA to 25 A) and
kinematics (outflow velocities from a few x 100 km/s up to ~10,000 km/s). The
rate of incidence and equivalent widths of the highly ionized outflows are
higher among X-ray weak or absorbed sources. The weighted outflow velocity
dispersions are highest among the X-ray weakest sources. No significant trends
are found between the weighted outflow velocities and the properties of the
quasars and host galaxies although this may be due to the limited dynamic range
of properties of the current sample. These results will be re-examined in an
upcoming paper where the sample is expanded to include the QUEST ULIRGs.
Finally, a lower limit of ~0.1% on the ratio of time-averaged kinetic power to
bolometric luminosity is estimated in the 2-4 objects with blueshifted P V
1117, 1128 absorption features.
