Warm Gas in the Virgo Cluster: I. Distribution of Lya Absorbers

Abstract

The first systematic study of the warm gas (T=10^4-5 K) distribution across a galaxy cluster is presented using multiple background QSOs to the Virgo Cluster. We detect 25 Lya absorbers (N_HI = 10^13.1-15.4 cm^-2) in the Virgo velocity range toward 9 of 12 QSO sightlines observed with Cosmic Origin Spectrograph, with a cluster impact parameter range of 0.36-1.65 Mpc (0.23-1.05R_vir). Including 18 Lya absorbers previously detected by STIS or GHRS toward 7 of 11 background QSOs in and around the Virgo Cluster, we establish a sample of 43 absorbers towards a total of 23 background probes for studying the incidence of Lya absorbers in and around the Virgo Cluster. With these absorbers, we find: (1) warm gas is predominantly in the outskirts of the cluster and avoids the X-ray detected hot ICM. Also, Lya absorption strength increases with cluster impact parameter. (2) Lya absorbing warm gas traces cold HI emitting gas in the substructures of the Virgo Cluster. (3) Including the absorbers associated with the surrounding substructures, the warm gas covering fraction (100% for N_HI > 10^13.1 cm^-2) is in agreement with cosmological simulations. We speculate that the observed warm gas is part of large-scale gas flows feeding the cluster both the ICM and galaxies.

15 pages, 6 figures, 8 tables, ApJ in press

References in corpus (20)

• Cold streams in early massive hot haloes as the main mode of galaxy formation
• The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA Survey: The alpha.40 HI Source Catalog, its Characteristics and their Impact on the Derivation of the HI Mass Function
• The Baryon Census in a Multiphase Intergalactic Medium: 30% of the Baryons May Still Be Missing
• The Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
• 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
• The Northern HIPASS catalogue - Data presentation, completeness and reliability measures
• The Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA Survey: III. HI Source Catalog of the Northern Virgo Cluster Region
• Physical Properties, Baryon Content, and Evolution of the LyαForest: New Insights from High Resolution Observations at z < 0.4
• Environmentally-Driven Evolution of Simulated Cluster Galaxies
• Simulated X-ray galaxy clusters at the virial radius: slopes of the gas density, temperature and surface brightness profiles
• NGC 4254: An Act of Harassment Uncovered by the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA Survey
• The origin of HI-deficiency in galaxies on the outskirts of the Virgo cluster. I. How far can galaxies bounce out of clusters?
• A STIS Survey for OVI Absorption Systems at 0.12 < z < 0.5 II.: Physical Conditions of the Ionised Gas
• Galaxy Clusters in the Line of Sight to Background Quasars: I. Survey Design and Incidence of MgII Absorbers at Cluster Redshifts
• Probing the IGM/Galaxy Connection Toward PKS0405-123 III: The Galaxy Survey and Correlations with OVI Absorbers
• A 500 kpc HI Extension of the Virgo Pair NGC4532/DDO137 Detected by the Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA (ALFALFA) Survey
• Cross correlation of Lyman-alpha absorbers with gas-rich galaxies
• Introducing Enzo, an AMR Cosmology Application
• The relation between Lyman-alpha absorbers and gas--rich galaxies in the local universe

Cited by in corpus (38)

• A Characteristic Scale for Cold Gas
• On the possible environmental effect in distributing heavy elements beyond individual gaseous halos
• The Extended Virgo Cluster Catalog
• A Substantial Mass of Cool, Metal-Enriched Gas Surrounding the Progenitors of Modern-Day Ellipticals
• Simulating Groups and the IntraGroup Medium: The Surprisingly Complex and Rich Middle Ground Between Clusters and Galaxies
• Characterizing the Circumgalactic Medium of Nearby Galaxies with HST/COS and HST/STIS Absorption-Line Spectroscopy: II. Methods and Models
• Characterizing Circumgalactic Gas around Massive Ellipticals at z ~ 0.4 I. Initial Results
• Absorption-Line Detections of $10^{5-6}$ K Gas in Spiral-Rich Groups of Galaxies
• Probing the IGM-galaxy connection at z<0.5 II. New insights into the galaxy environments of OVI absorbers in PKS 0405-123
• Large-scale filamentary structures around the Virgo cluster revisited
• On the connection between the intergalactic medium and galaxies: The HI-galaxy cross-correlation at z < 1
• Warm-hot Gas in X-ray Bright Galaxy Clusters and the H I-deficient Circumgalactic Medium in Dense Environments
• Early Science from POSSUM: Shocks, turbulence, and a massive new reservoir of ionised gas in the Fornax cluster
• Planck intermediate results. XL. The Sunyaev-Zeldovich signal from the Virgo cluster
• The Red Dead Redemption Survey of Circumgalactic Gas About Massive Galaxies. I. Mass and Metallicity of the Cool Phase
• The Influence of Environment on the Circumgalactic Medium
• Intense look at Virgo Southern Extension
• Lyman-alpha Absorbers and the Coma Cluster
• Discovery of a transparent sightline at ρ < 20 kpc from an interacting pair of galaxies
• Ultraviolet Signatures of the Multiphase Intracluster and Circumgalactic Media in the RomulusC Simulation
• Warm Gas in and Around Simulated Galaxy Clusters as Probed by Absorption Lines
• Predicted Sizes of Pressure-Supported HI Clouds in the Outskirts of the Virgo Cluster
• A minor merger scenario for the ultraluminous X-ray source ESO 243-49 HLX-1 - II. Constraints from photometry
• The Ultraviolet Detection of Diffuse Gas in Galaxy Groups
• Discovery of an HI-rich Gas Reservoir in the Outskirts of SZ-effect Selected Clusters
• The Mass and Absorption Columns of Galactic Gaseous Halos II -- The High Ionization State Ions
• X-ray mapping the outer regions of galaxy clusters at z= 0.23 and 0.45
• Discovery of a cool, metal-rich gas reservoir in the outskirts of z ~ 0.5 clusters
• C IV absorbers tracing cool gas in dense galaxy group/cluster environments
• The Arecibo Galaxy Environment Survey VII : A Dense Filament With Extremely Long HI Streams
• COS Observations of the Cosmic Web: A Search for the Cooler Components of a Hot, X-ray Identified Filament
• The Circumgalactic Medium in Massive Halos
• Detection of Metal-Rich, Cool-Warm Gas in the Outskirts of Galaxy Clusters
• A partial Lyman limit system tracing intragroup gas at $z\approx 0.8$ towards HE1003+0149
• The COS-Holes Survey: Connecting Galaxy Black Hole Mass with the State of the CGM
• Mid-IR Enhanced Galaxies in the Coma & Virgo Cluster: lenticulars with a high star formation rate
• Updated Models for the Creation of a Low-z QSO Absorber by a Dwarf Galaxy Wind
• Forecasting Galaxy Cluster HI Mass Recovery with CHIME at Redshifts z = 1 and 2 via the IllustrisTNG Simulations