The Connection between Galaxies and Intergalactic Absorption Lines at Redshift 2 ≲ z ≲ 3

By K. Adelberger, A. Shapley, C. Steidel, M. Pettini, D. Erb, Naveen A. Reddy. 2005

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Absorption-line spectroscopy of 23 background QSOs and numerous background galaxies has let us measure the spatial distribution of metals and neutral hydrogen around 1044 UV-selected galaxies at redshifts 1.8 ≲ z ≲ 3.3. The typical galaxy is surrounded to radii r ~ 40 proper kpc by gas that has a large velocity spread (Δv > 260 km s-1) and produces very strong absorption lines (N ≫ 1014 cm-2) in the spectra of background objects. These absorption lines are almost as strong as those produced by a typical galaxy's own interstellar gas. Absorption with an average column density of N ≃ 1014 cm-2 extends out to ~80 kpc, a radius large enough to imply that most strong intergalactic C IV absorption is associated with star-forming galaxies like those in our sample. Our measurement of the galaxy-C IV spatial correlation function shows that even the weakest detectable C IV systems are found in the same regions as galaxies; we find that the cross-correlation length increases with C IV column density and is similar to the galaxy autocorrelation length (r0 ~ 4 h-1 Mpc) for N ≳ 1012.5 cm-2. Distortions in the redshift-space galaxy-C IV correlation function on small scales may imply that some of the C IV systems have large peculiar velocities. Four of the five detected O VI absorption systems in our sample lie within 400 proper kpc of a known galaxy. Strong Lyα absorption is produced by the intergalactic gas within 1 h-1 comoving Mpc of most galaxies, but for a significant minority (~) the absorption is weak or absent. This is not observed in smooth-particle hydrodynamic simulations that omit the effects of "feedback" from galaxy formation. We were unable to identify any statistically significant differences in age, dust reddening, environment, or kinematics between galaxies with weak nearby H I absorption and the rest, although galaxies with weak absorption may have higher star formation rates. Galaxies near intergalactic C IV systems appear to reside in relatively dense environments and to have distinctive spectral energy distributions that are characterized by blue colors and young ages.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Atomic and Molecular Physics, and Optics, Instrumentation

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/60c5d6384d0685022f61d2c72e4ca3829505b481

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Citations in the corpus

A STEEP FAINT-END SLOPE OF THE UV LUMINOSITY FUNCTION AT z ∼ 2–3: IMPLICATIONS FOR THE GLOBAL STELLAR MASS DENSITY AND STAR FORMATION IN LOW-MASS HALOS (2008, methodology): “From a broader perspective, several studies have shown that galaxies with large stellar masses tend to cluster more strongly than less massive galaxies (Quadri et al. 2007; Adelberger et al. 2005a).”
The physics of the intergalactic medium (2007, background): “Evidence that high redshift galaxies do impact on the IGM is provided by Adelberger et al. (2005), who find that about a third of the galaxies in their sample at 2 <∼ z < ∼ 3 show clearings of weak or absent H I absorption out to distances of 1h−1 Mpc (comoving).”
A Spectroscopic Survey of Redshift 1.4 ≲ z ≲ 3.0 Galaxies in the GOODS-North Field: Survey Description, Catalogs, and Properties (2006, methodology): “These systematic offsets have been interpreted as the result of outflows (e.g., Adelberger et al. 2003, 2005b; Pettini et al. 2001; Shapley et al. 2003).”
THE GASEOUS ENVIRONMENT OF HIGH-z GALAXIES: PRECISION MEASUREMENTS OF NEUTRAL HYDROGEN IN THE CIRCUMGALACTIC MEDIUM OF z ∼ 2–3 GALAXIES IN THE KECK BARYONIC STRUCTURE SURVEY (2012, methodology): “…only galaxies withLUV ≥ 0.25L∗UV and the faint-end slope of the UV luminosity function is very steep atz∼ 2.3; however, it is consistent with previous results based on strong metal-line absorption around similar galaxies at comparable redshifts (Adelberger et al. 2003, 2005a; Steidel et al. 2010).”
PHYSICAL CONDITIONS IN A YOUNG, UNREDDENED, LOW-METALLICITY GALAXY AT HIGH REDSHIFT (2010, background): “Individual pairs can show much stronger absorption; for example, Adelberger et al. (2005) and Simcoe et al. (2006) identify strong absorption from C IV, Lyα, O VI and other ions in a QSO spectrum, and associate it with a massive galaxy at an impact parameter of 115 kpc.”
The Mass-Metallicity Relation at z≳2 (2006, background): “…objects in the local universe; such a comparison shows that early-type galaxies in the SDSS match the clustering properties of the z ∼ 2 sample, while the later-type star-forming objects studied by T04 are too weakly clustered to be the descendants of the z ∼ 2 population (Adelberger et al. 2005b).”
Feedback and recycled wind accretion: assembling the z= 0 galaxy mass function (2009, background): “Winds ejecting galactic ISM have the added benefit of chemically enriching the IGM, where metal absorption lines are observed to be common (e.g. Songaila & Cowie 1996; Songaila 2001; Schaye et al. 2003; Simcoe et al. 2004; Adelberger et al. 2005).”
COMPLETING THE CENSUS OF Lyα EMITTERS AT THE REIONIZATION EPOCH (2011, methodology): “The most promising method for overcoming the problem is to measure the systemic redshift of LAEs by detecting nebular emissions (Adelberger et al. 2005, McLinden et al. 2011), which is still technically difficult at z > 5.”
The Physical Nature of Rest-UV Galaxy Morphology during the Peak Epoch of Galaxy Formation (2006, unknown): “Before stacking, individual sky-subtracted spectra were flux-calibrated and shifted to the systemic rest frame using the prescriptions given by Adelberger et al. (2005), then resampled to a common dispersion of 1 Å pixel−1 and rescaled to a common mode in the range λλ1250 − 1500 Å.”
Hierarchical formation of bulgeless galaxies: why outflows have low angular momentum (2010, background): “Indeed, outflows have been detected at high redshift from Lyman-break selected galaxies (Pettini et al. 1998; Simcoe et al. 2002; Shapley et al. 2003; Adelberger et al. 2005), as well as gravitationally lensed galaxies (Pettini et al. 2000).”
Outflows in Infrared-Luminous Starbursts at z < 0.5. II. Analysis and Discussion (2005, background): “The opening angle of high-z starbursts is uncertain, but may be close to several tenths of 4 , similar to the IRGs (Adelberger et al. 2003, 2005).”
EVOLVING GRAVITATIONALLY UNSTABLE DISKS OVER COSMIC TIME: IMPLICATIONS FOR THICK DISK FORMATION (2011, methodology): “Simulations (Shen et al. 2011) and observations (Adelberger et al. 2005) suggest that the circum-galactic medium is enriched to this degree as early as z = 3.”
THE STRUCTURE AND KINEMATICS OF THE CIRCUMGALACTIC MEDIUM FROM FAR-ULTRAVIOLET SPECTRA OF z ≃ 2–3 GALAXIES (2010, methodology): “…enlarged sample ofz∼ 2 galaxies, including generally higher-quality UV spectra than available in the past, we revisit the measurement of galaxy systemic redshifts using far-UV spectral features, building on previous results (Pettini et al. 2001; Adelberger et al. 2003; Adelberger et al. 2005a).”
The Evolution of the Intergalactic Medium (2015, unknown): “This statistic was investigated by Adelberger et al. (2005) and Rakic et al. (2012), who detected an enhancement in absorption out to a few physical Mpc from galaxies but with a large amount of scatter.”
Hierarchical formation of bulgeless galaxies – II. Redistribution of angular momentum via galactic fountains (2011, background): “Outflows are expected, and indeed observed to be more common at high redshift where star formation is more active, and potential wells shallower (Madau et al. 1996; Pettini et al. 1998, 2000; Simcoe et al. 2002; Shapley et al. 2003; Adelberger et al. 2005).”
The origin of the galaxy mass-metallicity relation and implications for galactic outflows (2007, background): “The young galaxies also drive much of their enriched gas out via galactic superwinds, lac- ing the IGM with heavy elements (Adelberger et al. 2005b, 2003; Schaerer 2003) while suppressing their own star formation (Springel & Hernquist 2003b; Oppenheimer & Davé 2006).”