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Register a new userCharacterizing the Chemically-Enriched Circumgalactic Medium of ~38000 Luminous Red Galaxies in SDSS DR12
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Yun-Hsin Huang
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We report a definitive detection of chemically-enriched cool gas around massive, quiescent galaxies at z~0.4-0.7. The result is based on a survey of 37621 luminous red galaxy (LRG)-QSO pairs in SDSS DR12 with projected distance d<500 kpc. The LRGs are characterized by a predominantly old (age>~1Gyr) stellar population with 13% displaying [OII] emission features and LINER-like spectra. Both passive and [OII]-emitting LRGs share the same stellar mass distribution with a mean of <log(M*/Msun)>~11.4 and a dispersion of 0.2 dex. Both LRG populations exhibit associated strong MgII absorbers out to d<500 kpc. The mean gas covering fraction at d<~120 kpc is <kappa>_MgII > 15% and declines quickly to <kappa>_MgII ~ 5% at d<~500 kpc. No clear dependence on stellar mass is detected for the observed MgII absorption properties. The observed velocity dispersion of MgII absorbing gas relative to either passive or [OII]-emitting LRGs is merely 60% of what is expected from virial motion in these massive halos. While no apparent azimuthal dependence is seen for <kappa>_MgII around passive LRGs at all radii, a modest enhancement in <kappa>_MgII is detected along the major axis of [OII]-emitting LRGs at d<50 kpc. The suppressed velocity dispersion of MgII absorbing gas around both passive and [OII]-emitting LRGs, together with an elevated <kappa>_MgII along the major axis of [OII]-emitting LRGs at d<50 kpc, provides important insights into the origin of the observed chemically-enriched cool gas in LRG halos. We consider different scenarios and conclude that the observed MgII absorbers around LRGs are best-explained by a combination of cool clouds formed in thermally unstable LRG halos and satellite accretion through filaments.
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In order to study the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxies we develop an automated pipeline to estimate the optical continuum of quasars and detect intervening metal absorption line systems with a matched kernel convolution technique and adaptive S/N criteria. We process $sim$ one million quasars in the latest Data Release 16 (DR16) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and compile a large sample of $sim$ 160,000 MgII absorbers, together with $sim$ 70,000 FeII systems, in the redshift range $0.35<z_{abs}<2.3$. Combining these with the SDSS DR16 spectroscopy of $sim1.1$ million luminous red galaxies (LRGs) and $sim 200,000$ emission line galaxies (ELGs), we investigate the nature of cold gas absorption at $0.5<z<1$. These large samples allow us to characterize the scale dependence of MgII with greater accuracy than in previous work. We find that there is a strong enhancement of MgII absorption within $sim 50$ kpc of ELGs, and the covering fraction within $0.5r_{rm vir}$ of ELGs is 2-5 times higher than for LRGs. Beyond 50 kpc, there is a sharp decline in MgII for both kinds of galaxies, indicating a transition to the regime where the CGM is tightly linked with the dark matter halo. The MgII covering fraction correlates strongly with stellar mass for LRGs, but weakly for ELGs, where covering fractions increase with star formation rate. Our analysis implies that cool circumgalactic gas has a different physical origin for star forming versus quiescent galaxies.
We detect and study the properties of faint radio AGN in Luminous Red Galaxies (LRGs). The LRG sample comprises 760,000 objects from a catalog of LRG photometric redshifts constructed from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) imaging data, and 65,000 LRGs from the SDSS spectroscopic sample. These galaxies have typical 1.4 GHz flux densities in the 10s-100s of microJy, with the contribution from a low-luminosity AGN dominating any contribution from star formation. To probe the radio properties of such faint objects, we employ a stacking technique whereby FIRST survey image cutouts at each optical LRG position are sorted by the parameter of interest and median-combined within bins. We find that median radio luminosity scales with optical luminosity (L_opt) as L_1.4 GHz ~ L_opt^(beta), where beta appears to decrease from beta ~ 1 at z = 0.4 to beta ~ 0 at z = 0.7, a result which could be indicative of AGN cosmic downsizing. We also find that the overall LRG population, which is dominated by low-luminosity AGN, experiences significant cosmic evolution between z = 0.2 and z = 0.7. This implies a considerable increase in total AGN heating for these massive ellipticals with redshift. By matching against the FIRST catalog, we investigate the incidence and properties of LRGs associated with double-lobed (FR I/II) radio galaxies. (Abridged)
Using 10 sightlines observed with the Hubble Space Telescope/Cosmic Origins Spectrograph, we study the circumgalactic medium (CGM) and outflows of IC1613, which is a low-mass ($M_*sim10^8~M_odot$), dwarf irregular galaxy on the outskirts of the Local Group. Among the sightlines, 4 are pointed towards UV-bright stars in IC1613, and the other 6 sightlines are background QSOs at impact parameters from 6 kpc ($<0.1R_{200}$) to 61 kpc ($0.6R_{200}$). We detect a number of Si II, Si III, Si IV, C II, and C IV absorbers, most of which have velocities less than the escape velocity of IC1613 and thus are gravitationally bound. The line strengths of these ion absorbers are consistent with the CGM absorbers detected in dwarf galaxies at low redshifts. Assuming that Si II, Si III, and Si IV comprise nearly 100% of the total silicon, we find 3% ($sim$8$times$10$^3~{rm M_odot}$), 2% ($sim$7$times$10$^3~{rm M_odot}$), and 32--42% [$sim$(1.0--1.3)$times$10$^5~{rm M_odot}$] of the silicon mass in the stars, interstellar medium, and within $0.6R_{200}$ of the CGM of IC1613. We also estimate the metal outflow rate to be ${rm dot{M}_{out, Z}geq1.1times10^{-5}~M_odot~yr^{-1}}$ and the instantaneous metal mass loading factor to be $eta_{rm Z}geq0.004$, which are in broad agreement with available observation and simulation values. This work is the first time a dwarf galaxy of such low mass is probed by a number of both QSO and stellar sightlines, and it shows that the CGM of low-mass gas-rich galaxies can be a large reservoir enriched with metals from past and ongoing outflows.
We present the first characterization of the diffuse gas and metals in the circumgalactic medium of 96 z = 2.9-3.8 Ly$alpha$ emitters (LAEs) detected with the Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) in fields centered on 8 bright background quasars as part of our MUSEQuBES survey. The LAEs have relatively low Ly$alpha$ luminosities (~$10^{42}$ erg/s) and star formation rates ~1 $M_odot$/yr, which for main sequence galaxies corresponds to stellar masses of only ~$10^{8.6}$ $M_{odot}$. The median transverse distance between the LAEs and the quasar sightlines is 165 proper kpc (pkpc). We stacked the high-resolution quasar spectra and measured significant excess HI and CIV absorption near the LAEs out to 500 km/s and at least 250 pkpc (corresponding to ~7 virial radii). At < 30 km/s from the galaxies the median HI and CIV optical depths are enhanced by an order of magnitude. The average rest-frame equivalent width of Ly$alpha$ absorption is comparable to that for Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) at z~2.3 and ~L* galaxies at z~0.2, but considerably higher than for sub-L*/dwarf galaxies at low redshift. The CIV equivalent width is comparable to those measured for low-z dwarf galaxies and z~2.3 LBGs but significantly lower than for z~2.3 quasar-host galaxies. The absorption is significantly stronger around the ~ 1/3 of our LAEs that are part of groups, which we attribute to the large-scale structures in which they are embedded. We do not detect any strong dependence of either the HI or CIV absorption on transverse distance (over the range 50-250 pkpc), redshift, or the properties of the Ly$alpha$ emission line (luminosity, full width at half maximum, or equivalent width). However, for HI, but not CIV, the absorption at < 100 km/s from the LAE does increase with the star formation rate. This suggests that LAEs surrounded by more neutral gas tend to have higher star formation rates.
The equivalent widths of MgII absorption in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) trace the global star formation rate up to $z<6$, are larger for star-forming galaxies than passively-evolving galaxies, and decrease with increasing distance from the galaxy. We delve further into the physics involved by investigating gas kinematics and cloud column density distributions as a function of galaxy color, redshift, and projected distance from the galaxy (normalized by galaxy virial radius, $D/R_{rm vir}$). For 39 isolated galaxies at $0.3<z_{rm gal}<1.0$, we have detected MgII absorption in high-resolution ($Delta vsimeq 6.6$ km/s) spectra of background quasars within a projected distance of $7<D<190$ kpc. We characterize the absorption velocity spread using pixel-velocity two-point correlation functions. Velocity dispersions and cloud column densities for blue galaxies do not differ with redshift nor with $D/R_{rm vir}$. This suggests that outflows continually replenish the CGM of blue galaxies with high velocity dispersion, large column density gas out to large distances. Conversely, absorption hosted by red galaxies evolves with redshift where the velocity dispersions (column densities) are smaller (larger) at $z_{rm gal}<0.656$. After taking into account larger possible velocities in more massive galaxies, we find that there is no difference in the velocity dispersions or column densities for absorption hosted by red galaxies with $D/R_{rm vir}$. Thus, a lack of outflows in red galaxies causes the CGM to become more quiescent over time, with lower velocity dispersions and larger column densities towards lower $z_{rm gal}$. The quenching of star formation appears to affect the CGM out to $D/R_{rm vir}=0.75$.
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