No Arabic abstract
We use the EAGLE (Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their Environments) cosmological simulation to study the distribution of baryons, and far-ultraviolet (O VI), extreme-ultraviolet (Ne VIII) and X-ray (O VII, O VIII, Ne IX, and Fe XVII) line absorbers, around galaxies and haloes of mass $mathrm{M}_{200c}=10^{11}$-$10^{14.5},mathrm{M}_{odot}$ at redshift 0.1. EAGLE predicts that the circumgalactic medium (CGM) contains more metals than the interstellar medium across halo masses. The ions we study here trace the warm-hot, volume-filling phase of the CGM, but are biased towards temperatures corresponding to the collisional ionization peak for each ion, and towards high metallicities. Gas well within the virial radius is mostly collisionally ionized, but around and beyond this radius, and for O VI, photoionization becomes significant. When presenting observables we work with column densities, but quantify their relation with equivalent widths by analysing virtual spectra. Virial-temperature collisional ionization equilibrium ion fractions are good predictors of column density trends with halo mass, but underestimate the diversity of ions in haloes. Halo gas dominates the highest column density absorption for X-ray lines, but lower density gas contributes to strong UV absorption lines from O VI and Ne VIII. Of the O VII (O VIII) absorbers detectable in an Athena X-IFU blind survey, we find that 41 (56) per cent arise from haloes with $mathrm{M}_{200c}=10^{12.0}$-$10^{13.5},mathrm{M}_{odot}$. We predict that the X-IFU will detect O VII (O VIII) in 77 (46) per cent of the sightlines passing $mathrm{M}_{star}=10^{10.5}$-$10^{11.0},mathrm{M}_{odot}$ galaxies within 100 pkpc (59 (82) per cent for $mathrm{M}_{star}>10^{11.0},mathrm{M}_{odot}$). Hence, the X-IFU will probe covering fractions comparable to those detected with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph for O VI.
We estimate the detectability of X-ray metal-line emission from the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxies over a large halo mass range ($mathrm{M}_{mathrm{200c}} =10^{11.5}$-$10^{14.5},mathrm{M}_{odot}$) using the EAGLE simulations. With the XRISM Resolve instrument, a few bright (K-$alpha$ or Fe L-shell) lines from $mathrm{M}_{mathrm{200c}} gtrsim 10^{13},mathrm{M}_{odot}$ haloes should be detectable. Using the Athena X-IFU or the Lynx Main Array, emission lines (especially from O$,$VII and O$,$VIII) from the inner CGM of $mathrm{M}_{mathrm{200c}} gtrsim10^{12.5},mathrm{M}_{odot}$ haloes become detectable, and intragroup and intracluster gas will be detectable out to the virial radius. With the Lynx Ultra-high Resolution Array, the inner CGM of haloes hosting $mathrm{L}_{*}$ galaxies is accessible. These estimates do assume long exposure times ($sim 1,$Ms) and large spatial bins ($sim1$-$10,mathrm{arcmin}^{2}$). We also investigate the properties of the gas producing this emission. CGM emission is dominated by collisionally ionized (CI) gas, and tends to come from halo centres. The gas is typically close to the maximum emissivity temperature for CI gas ($mathrm{T}_mathrm{peak}$), and denser and more metal-rich than the bulk of the CGM at a given distance from the central galaxy. However, for the K-$alpha$ lines, emission can come from hotter gas in haloes where the virialized, volume-filling gas is hotter than $mathrm{T}_mathrm{peak}$. Trends of emission with halo mass can largely be explained by differences in virial temperature. Differences between lines generally result from the different behaviour of the emissivity as a function of temperature of the K-$alpha$, He-$alpha$-like, and Fe~L-shell lines. We conclude that upcoming X-ray missions will open up a new window onto the hot CGM.
We simulate stacked observations of nearby hot X-ray coronae associated with galaxies in the EAGLE and Illustris-TNG hydrodynamic simulations. A forward modeling pipeline is developed to predict 4-year eROSITA observations and stacked image analysis, including the effects of instrumental and astrophysical backgrounds. We propose an experiment to stack z~0.01 galaxies separated by specific star-formation rate (sSFR) to examine how the hot (T>=10^6 K) circumgalactic medium (CGM) differs for high- and low-sSFR galaxies. The simulations indicate that the hot CGM of low-mass (M_*~10^{10.5} Msol), high-sSFR (defined as the top one-third ranked by sSFR) central galaxies will be detectable to a galactocentric radius r~30-50 kpc. Both simulations predict lower luminosities at fixed stellar mass for the low-sSFR galaxies (the lower third of sSFR) with Illustris-TNG predicting 3x brighter coronae around high-sSFR galaxies than EAGLE. Both simulations predict detectable emission out to r~150-200 kpc for stacks centered on high-mass (M_*~10^{11.0} Msol) galaxies, with EAGLE predicting brighter X-ray halos. The extended soft X-ray luminosity correlates strongly and positively with the mass of circumgalactic gas within the virial radius (f_{CGM}). Prior analyses of both simulations have established that f_{CGM} is reduced by expulsive feedback driven mainly by black hole growth, which quenches galaxy growth by inhibiting replenishment of the ISM. Both simulations predict that eROSITA stacks should not only conclusively detect and resolve the hot CGM around L^* galaxies for the first time, but provide a powerful probe of how the baryon cycle operates, for which there remains an absence of consensus between state-of-the-art simulations.
Most of the baryonic mass in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of a spiral galaxy is believed to be warm-hot, with temperature around $10^6$K. The narrow OVI absorption lines probe a somewhat cooler component at $log rm T(K)= 5.5$, but broad OVI absorbers have the potential to probe the hotter CGM. Here we present 376 ks Chandra LETG observations of a carefully selected galaxy in which the presence of broad OVI together with the non-detection of Lya was indicative of warm-hot gas. The strongest line expected to be present at $approx 10^6$K is OVII $lambda 21.602$. There is a hint of an absorption line at the redshifted wavelength, but the line is not detected with better than $2sigma$ significance. A physical model, taking into account strengths of several other lines, provides better constraints. Our best-fit absorber model has $log rm T(K) =6.3pm 0.2$ and $log rm N_{H} (cm^{-2})=20.7^{+0.3}_{-0.5}$. These parameters are consistent with the warm-hot plasma model based on UV observations; other OVI models of cooler gas phases are ruled out at better than $99$% confidence. Thus we have suggestive, but not conclusive evidence for the broad OVI absorber probing the warm-hot gas from the shallow observations of this pilot program. About 800ks of XMM-Newton observations will detect the expected absorption lines of OVII and OVIII unequivocally. Future missions like XRISM, Arcus and Athena will revolutionize the CGM science.
We present basic data and modeling for a survey of the cool, photo-ionized Circum-Galactic Medium (CGM) of low-redshift galaxies using far-UV QSO absorption line probes. This survey consists of targeted and serendipitous CGM subsamples, originally described in Stocke et al. (2013, Paper 1). The targeted subsample probes low-luminosity, late-type galaxies at $z<0.02$ with small impact parameters ($langlerhorangle = 71$ kpc), and the serendipitous subsample probes higher luminosity galaxies at $zlesssim0.2$ with larger impact parameters ($langlerhorangle = 222$ kpc). HST and FUSE UV spectroscopy of the absorbers and basic data for the associated galaxies, derived from ground-based imaging and spectroscopy, are presented. We find broad agreement with the COS-Halos results, but our sample shows no evidence for changing ionization parameter or hydrogen density with distance from the CGM host galaxy, probably because the COS-Halos survey probes the CGM at smaller impact parameters. We find at least two passive galaxies with H I and metal-line absorption, confirming the intriguing COS-Halos result that galaxies sometimes have cool gas halos despite no on-going star formation. Using a new methodology for fitting H I absorption complexes, we confirm the CGM cool gas mass of Paper 1, but this value is significantly smaller than found by the COS-Halos survey. We trace much of this difference to the specific values of the low-$z$ meta-galactic ionization rate assumed. After accounting for this difference, a best-value for the CGM cool gas mass is found by combining the results of both surveys to obtain $log{(M/M_{odot})}=10.5pm0.3$, or ~30% of the total baryon reservoir of an $L geq L^*$, star-forming galaxy.
The Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM) arises from shock-heated gas collapsing in large-scale filaments and probably harbours a substantial fraction of the baryons in the local Universe. Absorption-line measurements in the ultraviolet (UV) and in the X-ray band currently represent the best method to study the WHIM at low redshifts. We here describe the physical properties of the WHIM and the concepts behind WHIM absorption line measurements of H I and high ions such as O VI, O VII, and O VIII in the far-ultraviolet and X-ray band. We review results of recent WHIM absorption line studies carried out with UV and X-ray satellites such as FUSE, HST, Chandra, and XMM-Newton and discuss their implications for our knowledge of the WHIM.