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Time evolution of the ionization state of metals in the cosmic baryons is investigated in a cosmological context without the assumption of ionization equilibrium. We find that a significant fraction of ionized oxygen ions (OVII and OVIII) in the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM) is not in the ionization equilibrium state at a redshift of z~0. We also investigate the effect on the detectability and observables of WHIM as a consequence of such deviation from ionization equilibrium. It is found that the detectability of WHIM is not altered very much both through its emission and absorption signatures, but line ratios between OVII and OVIII are significantly different from those in the ionization equilibrium state.
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Several popular cosmological models predict that most of the baryonic mass in the local universe is located in filamentary and sheet-like structures associated with groups and clusters of galaxies. This gas is expected to be gravitationally heated to ~10^6 K and therefore emitting in the soft X-rays. We have investigated three fields with large scale structures of galaxies at redshifts 0.1, 0.45, 0.79 and found signatures of warm-hot thermal emission (kT< 1 keV) correlated with the distribution of galaxies for the first two. The correlation and the properties of both X-ray and galaxy distribution strongly suggest that the diffuse X-ray flux is due to extragalactic emission by the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM) predicted by cosmological models.
We assess the possibility to detect the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM) in emission and to characterize its physical conditions and spatial distribution through spatially resolved X-ray spectroscopy, in the framework of the recently proposed DIOS, EDGE, Xenia, and ORIGIN missions, all of which are equipped with microcalorimeter-based detectors. For this purpose we analyze a large set of mock emission spectra, extracted from a cosmological hydrodynamical simulation. These mock X-ray spectra are searched for emission features showing both the OVII K alpha triplet and OVIII Ly alpha line, which constitute a typical signature of the warm hot gas. Our analysis shows that 1 Ms long exposures and energy resolution of 2.5 eV will allow us to detect about 400 such features per deg^2 with a significance >5 sigma and reveals that these emission systems are typically associated with density ~100 above the mean. The temperature can be estimated from the line ratio with a precision of ~20%. The combined effect of contamination from other lines, variation in the level of the continuum, and degradation of the energy resolution reduces these estimates. Yet, with an energy resolution of 7 eV and all these effects taken into account, one still expects about 160 detections per deg^2. These line systems are sufficient to trace the spatial distribution of the line-emitting gas, which constitute an additional information, independent from line statistics, to constrain the poorly known cosmic chemical enrichment history and the stellar feedback processes.
We briefly review the use of UV absorption lines in the spectra of low-redshift QSOs for the study of the physical conditions, metallicity, and baryonic content of the low-z IGM, with emphasis on the missing baryons problem. Current results on the statistics and baryonic content of intervening, low-z O VI and Lya absorption-line systems are presented with some comments on overlap between these two classes of absorbers and consequent baryon double-counting problems. From observations of a sample of 16 QSOs observed with the E140M echelle mode of STIS, we find 44 intervening O VI absorbers and 14 associated O VI systems [i.e, z(abs) ~ z(QSO)]. The implied number of intervening O VI absorbers per unit redshift is dN/dz(O VI) = 23+/-4 for rest equivalent width > 30 mA. The intervening O VI systems contain at least 7% of the baryons if their typical metallicity is 1/10 solar and the O VI ion fraction is <0.2. This finding is consistent with predictions made by cosmological simulations of large-scale structure growth. Recently, a population of remarkably broad Lya lines have been recognized in low-z quasar spectra. If these Lya lines are predominantly thermally broadened, then these H I absorbers likely harbor an important fraction of the baryons. We present and discuss some examples of the broad Lya absorbers. Finally, we briefly summarize some findings on the relationships between O VI absorbers and nearby galaxies/large-scale structures.
We observed the Seyfert I active galaxy/broad line radio galaxy 3C120 with the Chandra high energy transmission gratings and present an analysis of the soft X-ray spectrum. We identify the strongest absorption feature (detected at >99.9% confidence) with O VIII Lya (FWHM=1010^{+295}_{-265} km/s), blueshifted by -5500 +/- 140 km/s from systemic velocity. The absorption may be due to missing baryons in warm/hot intergalactic medium (WHIGM) along the line-of-sight to 3C 120 at z=0.0147 +/- 0.0005, or it could be intrinsic to the jet of 3C 120. Assuming metallicities of 0.1 solar, we estimate an ionic column density of N_{O VIII}>3.4 times 10^{16} cm^{-2} for WHIGM and a filament depth of <19 h^{-1}_{70} Mpc. We find a baryon overdensity >56 relative to the critical density of a $Lambda$-dominated cold dark matter universe, which is in reasonable agreement with WHIGM simulations. We detect, at marginal significance, absorption of O VIII Lya at zsim 0 due to a hot medium in the Local Group. We also detect an unidentified absorption feature at sim 0.71 keV. Absorption features which might be expected along with O VIII Lya, were not significant statistically. Relative abundances of metals in the WHIGM and local absorbers may therefore be considerably different from solar.
We present our XMM-Newton RGS observations of X Comae, an AGN behind the Coma cluster. We detect absorption by NeIX and OVIII at the redshift of Coma with an equivalent width of 3.3+/-1.8 eV and 1.7+/-1.3 eV, respectively (90% confidence errors or 2.3 sigma and 1.9 sigma confidence detections determined from Monte Carlo simulations). The combined significance of both lines is 3.0 sigma, again determined from Monte Carlo simulations. The same observation yields a high statistics EPIC spectrum of the Coma cluster gas at the position of X Comae. We detect emission by NeIX with a flux of 2.5+/-1.2 x 10^-8 photons cm^-2 s^-1 arcmin^-2 (90% confidence errors or 3.4 sigma confidence detection). These data permit a number of diagnostics to determine the properties of the material causing the absorption and producing the emission. Although a wide range of properties is permitted, values near the midpoint of the range are T = 4 x 10^6 K, n_H = 6 x 10^-6 cm^-3 corresponding to an overdensity with respect to the mean of 32, line of sight path length through it 41 Z/Zsolar^-1 Mpc where Z/Zsolar is the neon metallicity relative to solar. All of these properties are what has been predicted of the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM), so we conclude that we have detected the WHIM associated with the Coma cluster.
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