Hydrogen and Metal Line Absorption Around Low-Redshift Galaxies in Cosmological Hydrodynamic Simulations

Abstract

We study the physical conditions of the circum-galactic medium (CGM) around z=0.25 galaxies as traced by HI and metal line absorption, using cosmological hydrodynamic simulations that include galactic outflows. Using lines of sight targeted at impact parameters from 10 kpc to 1 Mpc around galaxies with halo masses from 10^11-10^13 M_solar, we study the physical conditions and their variation with impact parameter b and line-of-sight velocity delta v in the CGM as traced by HI, MgII, SiIV, CIV, OVI, and NeVIII absorbers. All ions show a strong excess of absorption near galaxies compared to random lines of sight. The excess continues beyond 1 Mpc, reflecting the correlation of metal absorption with large-scale structure. Absorption is particularly enhanced within about v<300 km/sec and roughly 300 kpc of galaxies (with distances somewhat larger for the highest ion), approximately delineating the CGM; this range contains the majority of global metal absorption. Low ions like MgII and SiIV predominantly arise in denser gas closer to galaxies and drop more rapidly with b, while high ions OVI and NeVIII trace more diffusely distributed gas with a comparatively flat radial profile; CIV is intermediate. All ions predominantly trace T~10^4-4.5 K photo-ionised gas at all b, but when hot CGM gas is present (mostly in larger halos), we see strong collisionally-ionised OVI and NeVIII at b <= 100 kpc. Larger halo masses generally produce more absorption, though overall the trends are not as strong as that with impact parameter. These findings arise using our favoured outflow scalings as expected for momentum-driven winds; with no winds, the CGM gas remains mostly unenriched, while our outflow model with a constant velocity and mass loading factor produce hotter, more widely dispersed metals.

26 pages, 15 figures, published in MNRAS. Updates to citations from previous version

References in corpus (18)

• The effect of photo-ionization on the cooling rates of enriched, astrophysical plasmas
• A New Calculation of the Ionizing Background Spectrum and the Effects of HeII Reionization
• Chemical enrichment in cosmological, smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations
• Cosmological Simulations of Intergalactic Medium Enrichment from Galactic Outflows
• The Role of Pressure in GMC Formation II: The H_2 - Pressure Relation
• Mass, Metal, and Energy Feedback in Cosmological Simulations
• The Origin of the Galaxy Mass-Metallicity Relation and Implications for Galactic Outflows
• The Search for the Missing Baryons at Low Redshift
• 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
• Damped Lyman Alpha Systems in Galaxy Formation Simulations
• Not Dead Yet: Cool Circumgalactic Gas in the Halos of Early Type Galaxies
• The Nature and Origin of Low-Redshift O VI Absorbers
• The Enrichment History of Baryons in the Universe
• Enrichment and Pre-Heating in Intragroup Gas from Galactic Outflows
• A STIS Survey for OVI Absorption Systems at 0.12 < z < 0.5 I.: The Statistical Properties of Ionized Gas
• Absorption signatures of warm-hot gas at low redshift: OVI
• Intergalactic Dust Extinction in Hydrodynamic Cosmological Simulations

Cited by in corpus (98)

• The Circumgalactic Medium
• Gusty, gaseous flows of FIRE: galactic winds in cosmological simulations with explicit stellar feedback
• The Cosmic Baryon Cycle and Galaxy Mass Assembly in the FIRE Simulations
• A Budget and Accounting of Metals at z~0: Results from the COS-Halos Survey
• Figuring Out Gas & Galaxies in Enzo (FOGGIE). I. Resolving Simulated Circumgalactic Absorption at 2 < z < 2.5
• How stellar feedback simultaneously regulates star formation and drives outflows
• Bimodality of low-redshift circumgalactic O VI in non-equilibrium EAGLE zoom simulations
• The Impact of Enhanced Halo Resolution on the Simulated Circumgalactic Medium
• Resolving small-scale cold circumgalactic gas in TNG50
• The Impact of Star Formation Feedback on the Circumgalactic Medium
• Metal-line absorption around $z\approx$2.4 star-forming galaxies in the Keck Baryonic Structure Survey
• Tracing Inflows and Outflows with Absorption Lines in Circumgalactic Gas
• Metal flows of the circumgalactic medium, and the metal budget in galactic halos
• Neutral hydrogen in galaxy halos at the peak of the cosmic star formation history
• On the possible environmental effect in distributing heavy elements beyond individual gaseous halos
• Non-Equilibirum ionisation and cooling of metal-enriched gas in the presence of a photo-ionisation background
• Mining Circumgalactic Baryons in the Low-Redshift Universe
• Zooming in on accretion - II. Cold Circumgalactic Gas Simulated with a super-Lagrangian Refinement Scheme
• Evidence for a Massive, Extended Circumgalactic Medium Around the Andromeda Galaxy
• MApping the Most Massive Overdensities (MAMMOTH) II -- Discovery of an Extremely Massive Overdensity BOSS1441 at $z=2.32$
• The Impact of Galactic Feedback on the Circumgalactic Medium
• A 100-kiloparsec wind feeding the circumgalactic medium of a massive compact galaxy
• A Deep Search For Faint Galaxies Associated With Very Low-redshift C IV Absorbers: III. The Mass- and Environment-dependent Circumgalactic Medium
• Flickering AGN can explain the strong circumgalactic O VI observed by COS-Halos
• The multiphase circumgalactic medium traced by low metal ions in EAGLE zoom simulations
• Baryon Cycling in the Low-Redshift Circumgalactic Medium: A Comparison of Simulations to the COS-Halos Survey
• MApping the Most Massive Overdensities Through Hydrogen (MAMMOTH) I: Methodology
• The Fates of the Circumgalactic Medium in the FIRE Simulations
• Column Density Profiles of Multi-Phase Gaseous Halos
• MAGIICAT III. Interpreting Self-Similarity of the Circumgalactic Medium with Virial Mass using MgII Absorption
• Feedback from supermassive black holes transforms centrals into passive galaxies by ejecting circumgalactic gas
• The Properties of the Circumgalactic Medium in Red and Blue Galaxies: Results from the COS-GASS+COS-Halos Surveys
• Characterizing Circumgalactic Gas around Massive Ellipticals at z ~ 0.4 I. Initial Results
• Tracing Outflowing Metals in Simulations of Dwarf and Spiral Galaxies
• AGN proximity zone fossils and the delayed recombination of metal lines
• Low-metallicity Absorbers Account for Half of the Dense Circumgalactic Gas at z < 1
• Galaxy mergers moulding the circum-galactic medium - I. The impact of a major merger
• Physics of Galactic Metals: Evolutionary Effects due to Production, Distribution, Feedback & Interaction with Black Holes
• CGM${}^2$ I: The Extent of the Circumgalactic Medium Traced by Neutral Hydrogen
• Direct Insights into Observational Absorption Line Analysis Methods of the Circumgalactic Medium Using Cosmological Simulations
• On the connection between the intergalactic medium and galaxies: The HI-galaxy cross-correlation at z < 1
• Discovery of a very hot phase of the Milky Way CGM with non-solar abundance ratios
• The effect of models of the interstellar media on the central mass distribution of galaxies
• On the model of the circumgalactic mist: the implications of cloud sizes in galactic winds and halos
• On the origin of excess cool gas in quasar host halos
• Metal-enriched halo gas across galaxy overdensities over the last 10 billion years
• EAGLE and Illustris-TNG predictions for resolved eROSITA X-ray observations of the circumgalactic medium around normal galaxies
• The Low Redshift Circumgalactic Medium in Simba
• Diagnosing galactic feedback with the line broadening in the low redshift Lyman-alpha forest
• HST/COS Observations of Ionized Gas Accretion at the Disk-halo Interface of M33
• Detection of hot, metal-enriched outflowing gas around $z\approx$2.3 star-forming galaxies in the Keck Baryonic Structure Survey
• Fast Winds Drive Slow Shells: A Model for the Circumgalactic Medium as Galactic Wind-Driven Bubbles
• The role of galaxies and AGN in reionizing the IGM - II: metal-tracing the faint sources of reionization at $5\lesssim z\lesssim 6$
• The Host Halos of OI Absorbers in the Reionization Epoch
• The High-Ion Content and Kinematics of Low-Redshift Lyman Limit Systems
• Empirically Constrained Predictions for Metal-Line Emission from the Circumgalactic Medium
• A Deep Search For Faint Galaxies Associated With Very Low-redshift C IV Absorbers: II. Program Design, Absorption-line Measurements, and Absorber Statistics
• Observations of metals in the $z\approx 3.5$ intergalactic medium and comparison to the EAGLE simulations
• Lyman-αabsorption beyond the disk of simulated spiral galaxies
• The impact of environment and mergers on the HI content of galaxies in hydrodynamic simulations
• Metals in the circumgalactic medium are out of ionization equilibrium due to fluctuating active galactic nuclei
• Probing the Anisotropy of the Milky Way Gaseous Halo-II: sightline toward Mrk509
• Halo Mass Dependence of HI and OVI Absorption: Evidence for Differential Kinematics
• Lyman Alpha and MgII as Probes of Galaxies and their Environments
• Cloud-by-cloud, multiphase, Bayesian modeling: Application to four weak, low ionization absorbers
• A New Model For Including Galactic Winds in Simulations of Galaxy Formation I: Introducing the Physically Evolved Winds (PhEW) Model
• Models of rotating coronae
• Diffuse coronae in cosmological simulations of Milky Way-sized galaxies
• Absorption signatures of warm-hot gas at low redshift: NeVIII
• The diversity of the circumgalactic medium around z = 0 Milky Way-mass galaxies from the Auriga simulations
• On the connection between the metal-enriched intergalactic medium and galaxies: an OVI-galaxy cross-correlation study at $z<1$
• The Impact of Outflows driven by Active Galactic Nuclei on Metals in and around Galaxies
• Warm Gas in and Around Simulated Galaxy Clusters as Probed by Absorption Lines
• Damped Ly-alpha Absorbers in Star-forming Galaxies at z < 0.15 Detected with the Hubble Space Telescope and Implications for Galaxy Evolution
• Simulating the Carbon Footprint of Galactic Halos
• The changing circumgalactic medium over the last 10 Gyr I: physical and dynamical properties
• Cold and Hot gas distribution around the Milky-Way-M31 system in the HESTIA simulations
• The evolution of the low-density HI intergalactic medium from z=3.6 to 0: Data, transmitted flux and HI column density
• The morphology and kinematics of neutral hydrogen in the vicinity of z=0 galaxies with Milky Way masses -- a study with the Illustris simulation
• The Impacts of Modeling Choices on the Inference of the Circumgalactic Medium Properties from Sunyaev-Zeldovich Observations
• Probing the CGM of Low-redshift Dwarf Galaxies Using FIRE Simulations
• The Robustness of Cosmological Hydrodynamic Simulation Predictions to Changes in Numerics and Cooling Physics
• Unravelling the physics of multiphase AGN winds through emission line tracers
• ELUCID VII: Using Constrained Hydro Simulations to Explore the Gas Component of the Cosmic Web
• The Physical Nature of Circumgalactic Medium Absorbers in Simba
• Column Density Profiles of Cold Clouds Driven by Galactic Outflows
• CGM${}^2$ $+$ CASBaH: The Mass Dependence of H~I Ly$\alpha$-Galaxy Clustering and the Extent of the CGM
• Metal content of the circumgalactic medium around star-forming galaxies at z $\sim$ 2.6 as revealed by the VIMOS Ultra-Deep Survey
• Evolution of CIV Absorbers. II. Where does CIV live?
• Angular momentum-related probe of cold gas deficiencies
• The Impact of Wind Scalings on Stellar Growth and the Baryon Cycle in Cosmological Simulations
• A Sub-Damped Ly$\alpha$ Absorber with Unusual Abundances: Evidence of Gas Recycling in a Low-Redshift Galaxy Group
• MUSE Analysis of Gas around Galaxies (MAGG) -- VI. The cool and enriched gas environment of z$\gtrsim$3 Ly$\alpha$ emitters
• Spatial Distribution of OVI Covering Fractions in the Simulated Circumgalactic Medium
• The Circumgalactic Medium from the CAMELS Simulations: Forecasting Constraints on Feedback Processes from Future Sunyaev-Zeldovich Observations
• A New Model For Including Galactic Winds in Simulations of Galaxy Formation II: Implementation of PhEW in Cosmological Simulations
• Constraining the geometry of the gas surrounding a typical galaxy at $z=3.4$ with Ly$\alpha$ polarization
• Mainly on the Plane: Observing the Extended, Ionized Disks of Milky Way Analogs in IllustrisTNG