Gas around galaxy haloes - II: hydrogen absorption signatures from the environments of galaxies at redshifts 2 < z < 3

We compare predictions of large-scale cosmological hydrodynamical simulations for neutral hydrogen absorption signatures in the vicinity of 1e11 - 1e12.5 MSun haloes with observational measurements. Two different hydrodynamical techniques and a variety of prescriptions for gas removal in high density regions are examined. Star formation and wind feedback play only secondary roles in the HI absorption signatures outside the virial radius, but play important roles within. Accordingly, we identify three distinct gaseous regions around a halo: the virialized region, the mesogalactic medium outside the virial radius arising from the extended haloes of galaxies out to about two turnaround radii, and the intergalactic medium beyond. Predictions for the amount of absorption from the mesogalactic and intergalactic media are robust across different methodologies, and the predictions agree with the amount of absorption observed around star-forming galaxies and QSO host galaxies. Recovering the measured amount of absorption within the virialized region, however, requires either a higher dynamic range in the simulations, additional physics, or both.

Helium reionization and the thermal proximity effect

We examine the temperature structure of the intergalactic medium IGM) surounding a hard radiation source, such as a Quasi-Stellar Object (QSO), as it responds to the onset of helium reionization by the source. We model the reionization using a radiative transfer (RT) code coupled to a particle-mesh (PM) N-body code. Neutral hydrogen and helium are initially ionized by a starburst spectrum, which is allowed to gradually evolve into a power law spectrum (fnu ~ nu^(-0.5)). Multiple simulations were performed with different times for the onset and dominance of the hard spectrum, with onset redshifts ranging from z = 3.5 to 5.5. The source is placed in a high-density region to mimic the expected local environment of a QSO. Simulations with the source placed in a low-density environment were also performed as control cases to explore the role of the environment on the properties of the surrounding IGM. We find in both cases that the IGM temperature within the HeIII region produced exceeds the IGM temperature before full helium reionization, resulting in a thermal proximity effect, but that the temperature in the HeIII region increases systematically with distance from the source. With time the temperature relaxes with a reduced spread as a function of impact parameter along neighbouring lines of sight, although the trend continues to persist until z = 2. Such a trend could be detected using the widths of intervening metal absorption systems using high resolution, high signal-to-noise ratio spectra.