Circumgalactic Pressure Profiles Indicate Precipitation-Limited Atmospheres for $M_{\ast }\sim 10^9$$-$$10^{11.5}{M}_{\odot }$

Abstract

Cosmic gas cycles in and out of galaxies, but outside of galaxies it is difficult to observe except for the absorption lines that circumgalactic clouds leave in the spectra of background quasars. Using photoionization modeling of those lines to determine cloud pressures, we find that galaxies are surrounded by extended atmospheres that confine the clouds and have a radial pressure profile that depends on galaxy mass. Motivated by observations of the universe's most massive galaxies, we compare those pressure measurements with models predicting the critical pressure at which cooler clouds start to precipitate out of the hot atmosphere and rain toward the center. We find excellent agreement, implying that the precipitation limit applies to galaxies over a wide mass range.

Accepted to ApJ Letters (8 pages, 4 figures)

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• Cloudy with A Chance of Rain: Accretion Braking of Cold Clouds
• The Cosmic Ultraviolet Baryon Survey (CUBS) V: On the Thermodynamic Properties of the Cool Circumgalactic Medium at $z<1$
• Figuring Out Gas & Galaxies In Enzo (FOGGIE) VI: The Circumgalactic Medium of $L^{\ast }$ Galaxies is Supported in an Emergent, Non-Hydrostatic Equilibrium
• A Graphical Interpretation of Circumgalactic Precipitation
• The Cosmic Ultraviolet Baryon Survey (CUBS) VI: Connecting Physical Properties of the Cool Circumgalactic Medium to Galaxies at $z\approx 1$
• GalICS 2.1: a new semianalytic model for cold accretion, cooling, feedback and their roles in galaxy formation
• Quantifying Observational Projection Effects with a Simulation-based hot CGM model
• Baryonic Post-Processing of N-body Simulations, with Application to Fast Radio Bursts
• Seeking Self-Regulating Simulations of Idealized Milky Way-Like Galaxies
• The hot gas distribution, X-ray luminosity and baryon budget in the L-Galaxies semi-analytic model of galaxy formation
• Introducing the Descriptive Parametric Model: Gaseous Profiles for Galaxies, Groups, and Clusters