Searching for the Missing Baryons in the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium

Abstract

At low redshift (z<2), almost half of the baryons in the Universe are not found in bound structures like galaxies and clusters and therefore most likely reside in a Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM), as predicted by simulations. Attempts to detect WHIM filaments at cosmological distances in absorption towards bright background sources have yielded controversial results that I review here. I argue that a secure detection of absorption features by the WHIM is at the limit of the XMM-Newton capabilities, but feasible. A proper characterisation of the whole WHIM belongs to the realm of future X-ray missions.

arXiv commentProceedings of the "XMM-Newton: the next decade", to appear in Astronomische Nachrichten

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Cited by in corpus (1)

• Detection of warm and diffuse baryons in large scale structure from the cross-correlation of gravitational lensing and the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect