Multiphase Gas In Galaxy Halos: The OVI Lyman-limit System toward J1009+0713

Abstract

We have serendipitously detected a strong O VI-bearing Lyman limit system at z_abs = 0.3558 toward the QSO J1009+0713 (z_em = 0.456) in our survey of low-redshift galaxy halos with the Hubble Space Telescope's Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. Its rest-frame equivalent width of W_r = 835 +/- 49 mA is the highest for an intervening absorber yet detected in any low-redshift QSO sightline, with absorption spanning 400 km s^-1 in its rest frame. HST/WFC3 images of the galaxy field show that the absorber is associated with two galaxies lying at 14 and 46 kpc from the QSO line of sight. The bulk of the absorbing gas traced by H I resides in two strong, blended component groups that possess a total logN(HI) = 18 - 18.8. The ion ratios and column densities of C, N, O, Mg, Si, S, and Fe, except the O VI, can be accommodated into a simple photoionization model in which diffuse, low-metallicity halo gas is exposed to a photoionizing field from stars in the nearby galaxies that propagates into the halo at 10% efficiency. We constrain the metallicity firmly within the range 0.1 - 1 Zsun, and photoionization modeling indirectly indicates a subsolar metallicity of 0.05 - 0.5 Zsun. The appearance of strong O VI and nine Mg II components and our review of similar systems in the literature support the "interface" picture of high-velocity O VI: the total strength of the O VI shows a positive correlation with the number of detected components in the low-ionization gas, however the total O VI column densities still far exceed the values expected from interface models for the number of detected clouds.

20 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (14)

• K-corrections and filter transformations in the ultraviolet, optical, and near infrared
• A High-Resolution Survey of Low-Redshift QSO Absorption Lines: Statistics and Physical Conditions of O VI Absorbers
• The Low-z Intergalactic Medium. III. HI and Metal Absorbers at z<0.4
• Physical Properties, Baryon Content, and Evolution of the LyαForest: New Insights from High Resolution Observations at z < 0.4
• The Source of Ionization along the Magellanic Stream
• The First Observations of Low Redshift Damped Lyman-alpha Systems with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
• A STIS Survey for OVI Absorption Systems at 0.12 < z < 0.5 I.: The Statistical Properties of Ionized Gas
• O VI Absorbers Tracing Hot Gas Associated with a Pair of Galaxies at z = 0.167
• A Multiphase Absorber Containing O VI and Broad H I Directly Tracing 10^6 K Plasma at Low-Redshift Toward HE 0153-4520
• The effects of spatially distributed ionisation sources on the temperature structure of HII region
• The MgII Cross-section of Luminous Red Galaxies
• GMRT mini-survey to search for 21-cm absorption in Quasar-Galaxy Pairs at z~0.1
• A SINFONI Integral Field Spectroscopy Survey for Galaxy Counterparts to Damped Lyman-alpha Systems - II. Dynamical Properties of the Galaxies towards Q0302-223 and Q1009-0026
• SOAR Imaging of sub-Damped Lyman-Alpha Systems at z<1

Cited by in corpus (71)

• The COS-Halos Survey: Rationale, Design, and A Census of Circumgalactic Neutral Hydrogen
• The COS-Dwarfs Survey: The Carbon Reservoir Around sub-L* Galaxies
• The Bimodal Metallicity Distribution of the Cool Circumgalactic Medium at z<1
• Star formation sustained by gas accretion
• Not Dead Yet: Cool Circumgalactic Gas in the Halos of Early Type Galaxies
• The Role of Cosmic Ray Transport in Shaping the Simulated Circumgalactic Medium
• Connection Between the Circumgalactic Medium and the Interstellar Medium of Galaxies: Results from the COS-GASS Survey
• The physical properties of z>2 Lyman limit systems: new constraints for feedback and accretion models
• Evidence for Cold Accretion: Primitive Gas Flowing onto a Galaxy at z~0.274
• The COS-Halos Survey: Keck LRIS and Magellan MagE Optical Spectroscopy
• The Impact of Cosmic Rays on Thermal Instability in the Circumgalactic Medium
• The Impact of Starbursts on the Circumgalactic Medium
• The COS/UVES Absorption Survey of the Magellanic Stream: II. Evidence for a complex enrichment history of the Stream from the Fairall 9 sightline
• QSO Absorption Systems Detected in Ne VIII: High-Metallicity Clouds with a Large Effective Cross Section
• An Extreme Metallicity, Large-Scale Outflow from a Star-Forming Galaxy at z ~ 0.4
• The COS Absorption Survey of Baryon Harbors (CASBaH): Warm-hot Circumgalactic Gas Reservoirs Traced by Ne VIII Absorption
• The Keck Baryonic Structure Survey: Using foreground/background galaxy pairs to trace the structure and kinematics of circumgalactic neutral hydrogen at $z\sim 2$
• Massive Warm/Hot Galaxy Coronae: II. Isentropic Model
• Bimodality of [α/Fe]-[Fe/H] distributions is a natural outcome of dissipative collapse and disc growth in Milky Way-type galaxies
• Low-metallicity Absorbers Account for Half of the Dense Circumgalactic Gas at z < 1
• CGM${}^2$ I: The Extent of the Circumgalactic Medium Traced by Neutral Hydrogen
• The First Observations of Low-Redshift Damped Lyman-α Systems with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph: Chemical Abundances and Affiliated Galaxies
• A SINFONI Integral Field Spectroscopy Survey for Galaxy Counterparts to Damped Lyman-alpha Systems - VI. Metallicity and Geometry as Gas Flow Probes
• The COS CGM Compendium. III: Metallicity and Physical Properties of the Cool Circumgalactic Medium at z<1
• The Gas-Galaxy Connection at z = 0.35: OVI and HI Absorption Towards J0943+0531
• The COS CGM Compendium. II: Metallicities of the Partial and Lyman Limit Systems at z<1
• Warm Gas in the Virgo Cluster: I. Distribution of Lya Absorbers
• An HST/COS survey of molecular hydrogen in DLAs & sub-DLAs at z < 1: Molecular fraction and excitation temperature
• The High-Ion Content and Kinematics of Low-Redshift Lyman Limit Systems
• Intermediate- and high-velocity clouds in the Milky Way II: evidence for a Galactic fountain with collimated outflows and diffuse inflows
• Rapid-response mode VLT/UVES spectroscopy of super iron-rich gas exposed to GRB 080310. Evidence of ionization in action and episodic star formation in the host
• MUSEQuBES: Characterizing the circumgalactic medium of redshift $\approx 3.3$ Ly$\alpha$ emitters
• A high resolution study of intergalactic O VI absorbers at z~2.3
• COS-Weak: Probing the CGM using analogs of weak Mg II absorbers at z < 0.3
• Spatially Resolved Metal Gas Clouds
• Far-Ultraviolet Observations of Outflows from IR-Luminous Galaxies
• FEASTS: IGM cooling triggered by tidal interactions through the diffuse HI phase around NGC 4631
• Probing the large and massive CGM of a galaxy at z ~ 0.2 using a pair of quasars
• Cosmic Origins Spectrograph Observations of Warm Intervening Gas Towards 3C263
• HST/COS detection of a Ne VIII absorber towards PG 1407+265: An unambiguous tracer of collisionally ionized hot gas?
• Composition of Low Redshift Halo Gas
• The Influence of Ram Pressure on the Evolution of Tidal Dwarf Galaxies
• Distribution of Faint Atomic Gas in Hickson Compact Groups
• FAST reveals new evidence for M94 as a merger
• Implications of an updated ultraviolet background for the ionization mechanisms of intervening Ne VIII absorbers
• The 21cm "Outer Arm" and the Outer-Galaxy High-Velocity Clouds: Connected by Kinematics, Metallicity, and Distance
• The Impact of Cosmic Rays on the Kinematics of the Circumgalactic Medium
• Detection of Two Intervening Ne VIII Absorbers Probing Warm Gas at z~0.6
• An Ultraviolet Survey of Low-Redshift Partial Lyman-Limit Systems with the HST Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
• Galaxies with Background QSOs, I: A Search for Strong Galactic H-alpha Lines
• HST/COS Detection of Deuterated Molecular Hydrogen in a DLA at z = 0.18
• Ultraviolet Signatures of the Multiphase Intracluster and Circumgalactic Media in the RomulusC Simulation
• Baryon content and dynamic state of galaxy clusters: XMM-Newton observations of A1095 and A1926
• The Impacts of Modeling Choices on the Inference of the Circumgalactic Medium Properties from Sunyaev-Zeldovich Observations
• MUSEQuBES: The relation between Ly$\alpha$ emitters and C IV absorbers at $z\approx 3.3$
• Agnostic Stacking of Intergalactic Doublet Absorption: Measuring the NeVIII Population
• ELUCID VII: Using Constrained Hydro Simulations to Explore the Gas Component of the Cosmic Web
• On The Effect of Environment on Line Emission from the Circumgalactic Medium
• CGM${}^2$ $+$ CASBaH: The Mass Dependence of H~I Ly$\alpha$-Galaxy Clustering and the Extent of the CGM
• Detection of Low Metallicity Warm Plasma in a Galaxy Overdensity Environment at z ~ 0.2
• The kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich tomography II: probing the circumgalactic medium
• A Compact High Velocity Cloud near the Magellanic Stream: Metallicity and Small-Scale Structure
• Probing Large Galaxy Halos at $z\sim 0$ with Automated $\mathrm{Ly}\alpha$-Absorption Matching
• FEASTS Combined with Interferometry. III. The Low Column Density HI Around M51 and Possibility of Turbulent-mixing Gas Accretion
• High-resolution absorption spectroscopy of the circumgalactic medium of the Milky Way
• A High Signal-to-Noise HST Spectrum Toward J1009+0713: Precise Absorption Measurements in the CGM of Two Galaxies
• Solar-Metallicity Gas in the Extended Halo of a Galaxy at $z\sim 0.12$
• Tracing dense and diffuse neutral hydrogen in the halo of the Milky Way
• Thinking outside the halo: Tracing the large-scale distribution of diffuse cosmic metals with semi-analytic models
• High-resolution observations of two OVI absorbers at z=2 towards PKS 1448-232
• The Circumgalactic Medium from the CAMELS Simulations: Forecasting Constraints on Feedback Processes from Future Sunyaev-Zeldovich Observations