The COS Absorption Survey of Baryon Harbors: The Galaxy Database and Cross-Correlation Analysis of OVI Systems

Abstract

We describe the survey for galaxies in the fields surrounding 9 sightlines to far-UV bright, z~1 quasars that define the COS Absorption Survey of Baryon Harbors (CASBaH) program. The photometry and spectroscopy that comprise the dataset come from a mixture of public surveys (SDSS, DECaLS) and our dedicated efforts on private facilities (Keck, MMT, LBT). We report the redshifts and stellar masses for 5902 galaxies within ~10 comoving-Mpc (cMpc) of the sightlines with a median of z=0.28 and M_* ~ 10^(10.1) Msun. This dataset, publicly available as the CASBaH specDB, forms the basis of several recent and ongoing CASBaH analyses. Here, we perform a clustering analysis of the galaxy sample with itself (auto-correlation) and against the set of OVI absorption systems (cross-correlation) discovered in the CASBaH quasar spectra with column densities N(O^+5) >= 10^(13.5)/cm^2. For each, we describe the measured clustering signal with a power-law correlation function xi(r) = (r/r_0)^(-gamma) and find that (r_0,gamma) = (5.48 +/- 0.07 h_100^-1 Mpc, 1.33 +/- 0.04) for the auto-correlation and (6.00 +/- 1 h^-1 Mpc, 1.25 +/- 0.18) for galaxy-OVI cross-correlation. We further estimate a bias factor of b_gg = 1.3 +/- 0.1 from the galaxy-galaxy auto-correlation indicating the galaxies are hosted by halos with mass M_halo ~ 10^(12.1 +/- 0.05) Msun. Finally, we estimate an OVI-galaxy bias factor b_OVI = 1.0 +/- 0.1 from the cross-correlation which is consistent with OVI absorbers being hosted by dark matter halos with typical mass M_halo ~ 10^(11) Msun. Future works with upcoming datasets (e.g., CGM^2) will improve upon these results and will assess whether any of the detected OVI arises in the intergalactic medium.

25 pages, 27 figures. Published in ApJS. All of the galaxy spectra are provided as a specDB file (https://github.com/specdb/specdb)

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• How identifying circumgalactic gas by line-of-sight velocity instead of the location in 3D space affects O VI measurements
• The AGORA High-resolution Galaxy Simulations Comparison Project. VI. Similarities and Differences in the Circumgalactic Medium
• CGM${}^2$ $+$ CASBaH: The Mass Dependence of H~I Ly$\alpha$-Galaxy Clustering and the Extent of the CGM
• Hot gas in galaxy halos traced by coronal broad Lyman alpha absorbers
• Distinguishing Between Photoionized and Collisionally Ionized Gas in the Circumgalactic Medium
• Identifying Circumgalactic Medium Absorption in QSO Spectra: A Bayesian Approach
• The Hosts of X-ray Absorption Lines Toward AGNs