Cosmological evolution of atomic gas and implications for 21 cm HI absorption

Abstract

Galaxy disks are shown to contain a significant population of atomic clouds of 100pc linear size which are self-opaque in the 21cm transition. These objects have HI column densities as high as 10^23 and contribute to a global opacity correction factor of 1.34+/-0.05 that applies to the integrated 21cm emission to obtain a total HI mass estimate. Opacity-corrected images of the nearest external galaxies have been used to form a robust z=0 distribution function of HI, f(N_HI,X,z=0), the probability of encountering a specific HI column density per unit comoving distance. This is contrasted with previously published determinations of f(N_HI,X) at z=1 and 3. A systematic decline of moderate column density (18<log(N_HI)<21) HI is observed that corresponds to a decline in surface area of such gas by a factor of five since z=3. The number of equivalent DLA absorbers (log(N_HI)>20.3) has also declined systematically over this redshift interval by a similar amount, while the cosmological mass density in such systems has declined by only a factor of two to its current, opacity corrected value of Omega_HI^DLA(z=0) = 5.4 +/- 0.9x10^-4. We utilize the tight, but strongly non-linear dependence of 21cm absorption opacity on column density at z=0 to transform our HI images into ones of 21cm absorption opacity. These images are used to calculate distribution and pathlength functions of integrated 21cm opacity. The incidence of deep 21cm absorption systems is predicted to show very little evolution with redshift, while that of faint absorbers should decline by a factor of five between z=3 and the present. We explicitly consider the effects of HI absorption against background sources that are extended relative to the 100pc intervening absorber size scale. Future surveys of 21cm absorption will require very high angular resolution, of about 15mas, for their unambiguous interpretation. (Abridged.)

32 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ

References in corpus (5)

• Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Data Processing, Sky Maps, and Basic Results
• On the (Non)Evolution of HI Disks over Cosmic Time
• The HI content of star-forming galaxies at z = 0.24
• A Wide-field High Resolution HI Mosaic of Messier 31: I. Opaque Atomic Gas and Star Formation Rate Density
• The Keck+Magellan Survey for Lyman Limit Absorption I: The Frequency Distribution of Super Lyman Limit Systems

Cited by in corpus (113)

• The Evolution of the Star-forming Interstellar Medium across Cosmic Time
• Column density distribution and cosmological mass density of neutral gas: Sloan Digital Sky Survey-III Data Release 9
• Stars, Gas, and Dark Matter in the Solar Neighborhood
• Cloud-Scale Molecular Gas Properties in 15 Nearby Galaxies
• Ingredients for 21cm intensity mapping
• Evolution of the atomic and molecular gas content of galaxies
• The Neutral Hydrogen Content of Galaxies in Cosmological Hydrodynamic Simulations
• The ALFALFA HI mass function: A dichotomy in the low-mass slope and a locally suppressed 'knee' mass
• The Neutral Hydrogen Cosmological Mass Density at z=5
• The ESO UVES Advanced Data Products Quasar Sample - II. Cosmological Evolution of the Neutral Gas Mass Density
• The EAGLE simulations: atomic hydrogen associated with galaxies
• The distribution of neutral hydrogen around high-redshift galaxies and quasars in the EAGLE simulation
• The Evolution of the Baryons Associated with Galaxies Averaged over Cosmic Time and Space
• The physical origin of long gas depletion times in galaxies
• VLA-ANGST: A high-resolution HI Survey of Nearby Dwarf Galaxies
• Atomic and molecular gas in IllustrisTNG galaxies at low redshift
• A Portrait of Cold Gas in Galaxies at 60pc Resolution and a Simple Method to Test Hypotheses That Link Small-Scale ISM Structure to Galaxy-Scale Processes
• HI constraints from the cross-correlation of eBOSS galaxies and Green Bank Telescope intensity maps
• Neutral atomic hydrogen (HI) gas evolution in field galaxies at z ~ 0.1 and 0.2
• A connection between extremely strong Damped Lyman-alpha Systems and Lyman-alpha Emitting Galaxies at small impact parameters
• Evolution of the atomic and molecular gas content of galaxies in dark matter haloes
• A halo model for cosmological neutral hydrogen: abundances and clustering
• The HI Content of the Universe over the Past 10 Gyrs
• The Herschel Exploitation of Local Galaxy Andromeda (HELGA). I: Global far-infrared and sub-mm morphology
• Neutral hydrogen (HI) gas content of galaxies at $z\approx 0.32$
• The Spectrum of the Universe
• Cold and Warm Atomic Gas around the Perseus Molecular Cloud. II. The Impact of High Optical Depth on the HI Column Density Distribution and Its Implication for the HI-to-H2 Transition
• Optically thick HI dominant in the local interstellar medium; an alternative interpretation to "dark gas"
• On the spatial distribution of neutral hydrogen in the Universe: bias and shot-noise of the HI Power Spectrum
• A search for HI absorption in nearby radio galaxies using HIPASS
• Dynamical signatures of a LCDM-halo and the distribution of the baryons in M33
• Modeling the neutral hydrogen distribution in the post-reionization Universe: intensity mapping
• Directly imaging damped Ly-alpha galaxies at z>2. III: The star formation rates of neutral gas reservoirs at z~2.7
• The evolution of neutral gas in damped Lyman $\alpha$ systems from the XQ-100 survey
• The Relationship Between Molecular Gas, HI, and Star Formation in the Low-Mass, Low-Metallicity Magellanic Clouds
• Discovery of HI gas in a young radio galaxy at $z=0.44$ using the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder
• The Statistical Properties of Neutral Gas at z<1.65 from UV Measurements of Damped Lyman Alpha Systems
• The HI/OH/Recombination line survey of the inner Milky Way (THOR): data release 2 and HI overview
• Supernova Remnants in the Local Group I: A model for the radio luminosity function and visibility times of supernova remnants
• A resolved analysis of cold dust and gas in the nearby edge-on spiral NGC 891
• Theoretical and observational constraints on the HI intensity power spectrum
• Constraining a halo model for cosmological neutral hydrogen
• Kinematics of the Atomic ISM in M33 on 80 pc scales
• VLT/UVES observations of extremely strong intervening damped Lyman-alpha systems: Molecular hydrogen and excited carbon, oxygen and silicon at log N(HI)=22.4
• A search for 21 cm HI absorption in AT20G compact radio galaxies
• GMRT observation of neutral atomic hydrogen gas in the COSMOS field at $z\sim 0.37$
• Forecast for FAST: from Galaxies Survey to Intensity Mapping
• Neutral hydrogen in galaxy clusters: impact of AGN feedback and implications for intensity mapping
• The Resolved Distributions of Dust Mass and Temperature in Local Group Galaxies
• Molecular gas and star formation in an absorption-selected galaxy: Hitting the bull's eye at z = 2.46
• Illuminating the past 8 billion years of cold gas towards two gravitationally lensed quasars
• An accurate low-redshift measurement of the cosmic neutral hydrogen density
• The ALMA REBELS Survey: The Cosmic HI Gas Mass Density in Galaxies at $z\approx 7$
• The diversity of rotation curves of simulated galaxies with cusps and cores
• The HI content of dark matter halos at $z\approx 0$ from ALFALFA
• The First Large Absorption Survey in HI (FLASH): I. Science Goals and Survey Design
• Spatial Decorrelation of Young Stars and Dense Gas as a Probe of the Star Formation-Feedback Cycle in Galaxies
• FLASH Early Science -- Discovery of an intervening HI 21-cm absorber from an ASKAP survey of the GAMA 23 field
• Velocity profiles of [CII], [CI], CO, and [OI] and physical conditions in four star-forming regions in the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Herschel-ATLAS: Correlations between Dust and Gas in Local Submm-Selected Galaxies
• Accurate measurement of the HI column density from HI 21cm absorption-emission spectroscopy
• The Progenitors and Lifetimes of Planetary Nebula
• Detection of emission lines from z ~ 3 DLAs towards the QSO J2358+0149
• Modelling the cosmic neutral hydrogen from DLAs and 21 cm observations
• The Star Formation Rate Efficiency of Neutral Atomic-dominated Hydrogen Gas in the Outskirts of Star Forming Galaxies from z~1 to z~3
• Lyman Alpha and MgII as Probes of Galaxies and their Environments
• HI emission and absorption in nearby, gas-rich galaxies II. -- sample completion and detection of intervening absorption in NGC 5156
• New HI 21-cm absorbers at low and intermediate redshifts
• Mapping Spatial Variations of HI Turbulent Properties in the Small and Large Magellanic Cloud
• Damped Lyα Absorption Systems in Semi-Analytic Models with Multiphase Gas
• Synthetic Observations of 21cm HI Line Profiles from Inhomogeneous Turbulent Interstellar HI Gas with Magnetic Field
• Anisotropic halo assembly bias and redshift-space distortions
• A successful search for intervening 21 cm HI absorption in galaxies at 0.4 < z <1.0 with the Australian Square Kilometre Array Pathfinder (ASKAP)
• A lack of constraints on the cold opaque HI mass: HI spectra in M31 and M33 prefer multi-component models over a single cold opaque component
• The evolution of neutral hydrogen over the past 11 Gyr via HI 21 cm absorption
• The atomic-to-molecular hydrogen transition in the TNG50 simulation: Using realistic UV fields to create spatially resolved HI maps
• The bivariate gas-stellar mass distributions and the mass functions of early- and late-type galaxies at $z\sim 0$
• The Arecibo Ultra-Deep Survey
• Revealing HI gas in emission and absorption on pc to kpc scales in a galaxy at z ~ 0.017
• HI emission and absorption in nearby, gas-rich galaxies
• Outskirts of Distant Galaxies In Absorption
• SKA Science Data Challenge 2: analysis and results
• On the Origin of the High Column Density Turnover in the HI Column Density Distribution
• Probing the Extended Gaseous Regions of M31 with Quasar Absorption Lines
• The Astrophysical Consequences of Intervening Galaxy Gas on Fast Radio Bursts
• Using 21-cm absorption surveys to measure the average HI spin temperature in distant galaxies
• An ATCA Survey of HI Absorption in the Magellanic Clouds I: HI Gas Temperature Measurements in the Small Magellanic Cloud
• Spatial Power Spectra of Dust across the Local Group: No Constraint on Disc Scale Height
• The difficulty of measuring the local dark matter density
• Sub-damped Lyman alpha systems in the XQ-100 survey I -- Identification and contribution to the cosmological HI budget
• Local photoionization feedback effects on galaxies
• The Probability Distribution Function of Gas Surface Density in M33
• New empirical constraints on the cosmological evolution of gas and stars in galaxies
• HERschel Observations of Edge-on Spirals (HEROES). II: Tilted-ring modelling of the atomic gas disks
• Cold HI in faint dwarf galaxies
• A statistical measurement of the HI spin temperature in DLAs at cosmological distances
• The Shape of Dark Matter Haloes III. Kinematics and Structure of the HI disc
• The Column Densities of Molecular Gas across Cosmic Time: Bridging Observations and Simulations
• Far-infrared excess emission as a tracer of disk-halo interaction
• The gravitational and lensing-ISW bispectrum of 21cm radiation
• Observations of cold extragalactic gas clouds at $z=0.45$ towards PKS 1610-771
• Tracing the Formation of Molecular Clouds in a Low-Metallicity Galaxy: A HI Narrow Self-Absorption Survey of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• Statistical distribution of HI 21cm intervening absorbers as potential cosmic acceleration probes
• The Qz5 Survey (I): How the HI Mass Density of the Universe Evolves With Cosmic Time
• Bivariate luminosity-HI mass distribution function of galaxies based on the NIBLES survey
• A Global Census of Metals in the Universe
• Mind the gap: the power of combining photometric surveys with intensity mapping
• Estimating the baryonic masses of face-on spiral galaxies from stellar kinematics
• A first quantification of the effects of absorption for HI Intensity Mapping experiments
• Measuring Cosmic Density of Neutral Hydrogen via Stacking the DINGO-VLA Data
• HI Intensity Mapping cross-correlation with thermal SZ fluctuations: forecasted cosmological parameters estimation for FAST and Planck
• Measuring the HI content of individual galaxies out to the epoch of reionization with [CII]
• FEASTS and MHONGOOSE: HI Column Density Distribution at $z=0$ for $N_{\mathrm{HI}}>10^{17.8}{\mathrm{cm}}^{-2}$