Fluorescent Lyα Emission from the High-Redshift Intergalactic Medium

By S. Cantalupo, C. Porciani, S. Lilly, Francesco Miniati. 2005

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We combine a high-resolution hydro simulation of the ΛCDM cosmology with two radiative transfer schemes (for continuum and line radiation) to predict the properties, spectra, and spatial distribution of fluorescent Lyα emission at z ~ 3. We focus on line radiation produced by recombinations in the dense intergalactic medium ionized by UV photons. In particular, we consider both a uniform background and the case in which gas clouds are illuminated by a nearby quasar. We find that the emission from optically thick regions is substantially less than predicted from the widely used static, plane-parallel model. The effects induced by a realistic velocity field and by the complex geometric structure of the emitting regions are discussed in detail. We make predictions for the expected brightness and size distributions of the fluorescent sources. Our results account for recent null detections and can be used to plan new observational campaigns both in the field (to measure the intensity of the diffuse UV background) and in the proximity of bright quasars (to understand the origin of high column density absorbers).

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/b237e1b89dd434df62df4603a720c89246534b17

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Citations in the corpus

Using Lyman-α to detect galaxies that leak Lyman continuum (2014, background): “Cantalupo et al. (2005) and Kollmeier et al. (2010) predicted the Lyα spectra and luminosities emitted by a cloud of neutral gas, enlighted by a close-by quasar, or embedded in the cosmological UV background.”
Lyα Emitting Galaxies as a Probe of Reionisation (2014, background): “…which scattering of individual photons is simulated until they escape (e.g Loeb & Rybicki 1999; Ahn, Lee, & Lee 2001; Zheng & Miralda-Escudé 2002; Cantalupo et al. 2005; Verhamme, Schaerer, & Maselli 2006; Tasitsiomi 2006; Dijkstra et al. 2006; Semelin, Combes, & Baek 2007; Pierleoni, Maselli,…”
The MUSE Hubble Ultra Deep Field Survey - VIII. Extended Lyman-α haloes around high-z star-forming galaxies (2017, background): “…for the Lyα haloes is the Lyα fluorescence resulting from the recombinations of hydrogen that is photo-ionized by Lyman continuum (LyC) radiation generated by nearby quasars, young stars, or by the cosmic UV background (UVB) (Furlanetto et al. 2005; Cantalupo et al. 2005; Kollmeier et al. 2010).”
The physics of the intergalactic medium (2007, background): “Ionizing radiation reprocessed by the neutral gas in Lyman Limit Systems into Lyα photons may soon be detectable by upcoming Lyα narrow-band detectors (Cantalupo et al., 2007, 2005; Gould and Weinberg, 1996; Hogan and Weymann, 1987).”
Extended Lyman-alpha emission from cold accretion streams (2011, background): “(b) Photo-fluorescence by near-lying sources, such as active galactic nuclei (AGN) or starbursts (e.g. Haiman & Rees 2001; Cantalupo et al. 2005; Kollmeier et al. 2010), (c) Lyα scattering, also fuelled by neighbouring star-forming regions (e.g. Laursen & Sommer-Larsen 2007; Zheng et al. 2011).”
Lyα COOLING EMISSION FROM GALAXY FORMATION (2010, methodology): “…of a prescribed number, Nph, of Lyα photons and statistically estimates the emergent morphology and line profile from them (e.g., Zheng & Miralda-Escudé 2002a; Cantalupo et al. 2005; Dijkstra et al. 2006; Verhamme et al. 2006; Tasitsiomi 2006a; Laursen & Sommer-Larsen 2007; Laursen et al. 2009a).”
Mapping Neutral Hydrogen during Reionization with the Lyα Emission from Quasar Ionization Fronts (2007, unknown): “Optically thick and self-shielded H i clouds exposed to strong UV radiation are expected to reemit a significant part of the impinging flux in the form of ‘‘fluorescent’’ Ly emission (Gould & Weinberg 1996; Cantalupo et al. 2005).”
A Population of Faint Extended Line Emitters and the Host Galaxies of Optically Thick QSO Absorption Systems (2007, background): “…where H i ionizing photons impinging on optical thick gas are absorbed and converted with high efficiency to Ly line radiation, albeit at a very low surface brightness level (<10 19 erg cm 2 s 1 arcsec 2; Hogan & Weymann 1987; Binette et al. 1993; Gould & Weinberg 1996; Cantalupo et al. 2005).”
Quasars Probing Quasars. I. Optically Thick Absorbers near Luminous Quasars (2006, background): “…in ionization equilibrium with a photoionizing background reemit 60% of the ionizing radiation they absorb as fluorescent Ly recombination line photons (Gould & Weinberg 1996; Zheng & Miralda-Escudé 2002; Cantalupo et al. 2005; Adelberger et al. 2006; J. A. Kollmeier et al. 2006, in preparation).”
Extended Lyman α haloes around individual high-redshift galaxies revealed by MUSE (2015, background): “…the latter is generally predicted to be far below our sensitivity threshold unless boosted by a nearby strong UV source such as a luminous quasar (Cantalupo et al. 2005; Kollmeier et al. 2010), Lyα emitted by accreted intergalactic gas is actually an expected signature of galaxy growth (Haiman…”
UBIQUITOUS GIANT Lyα NEBULAE AROUND THE BRIGHTEST QUASARS AT z ∼ 3.5 REVEALED WITH MUSE (2016, methodology): “…narrow Lyα emission from cosmic hydrogen around a quasar, as observed in our study: i) recombination radiation due to quasar photo-ionisation (Cantalupo et al. 2005; Kollmeier et al. 2010; Cantalupo et al. 2014); ii) "continuumpumping" or Lyα scattering from the quasar broad-line region…”
3D Lyman-alpha radiation transfer. I. Understanding Lyman-alpha line profile morphologies (2006, methodology): “…new numerical algorithms, mostly based on Monte Carlo techniques (Spaans 1996, Ahn et al. 2001, 2002; 2003, Ahn 2004; Zheng & Miralda-Escudé 2002; Richling et al. 2001; Richling 2003; Kobayashi & Kamaya 2004; Cantalupo et al. 2005; Dijkstra et al. 2005ab; Hansen & Oh 2006; Tasitsiomi 2006).”
Lyα Radiation from Collapsing Protogalaxies. I. Characteristics of the Emergent Spectrum (2005, methodology): “The test is similar to one generally performed by other groups (e.g., Ahn et al. 2000, 2002; Cantalupo et al. 2005; ZM02) but differs in the geometry of the gas distribution.”
DIFFUSE Lyα EMITTING HALOS: A GENERIC PROPERTY OF HIGH-REDSHIFT STAR-FORMING GALAXIES (2011, background): “The difficulty of detecting the fluorescent signal from the metagalactic UV field has instead inspired several searches for fluorescence near bright sources of ionizing photons, such as QSOs (Francis & Bland-Hawthorn 2004; Cantalupo et al. 2005; Adelberger et al. 2006; Hennawi et al. 2009).”
ramses-rt: radiation hydrodynamics in the cosmological context (2013, background): “…where Doppler/redshift effects in resonant photon scattering are important, Monte Carlo schemes are the only feasible way to go – though in these cases, post-processing RT is usually sufficient (e.g. Cantalupo et al. 2005; Verhamme et al. 2006; Laursen & Sommer-Larsen 2007; Pierleoni et al. 2009).”
Absorption-line systems in simulated galaxies fed by cold streams (2011, background): “Finally, we ignore the possibility that these galaxies could lie in the proximity of other ionizing sources, such as QSOs (e.g. Cantalupo et al. 2005).”