Probing the physical properties of the intergalactic medium using blazars
arXiv:2109.06632 · doi:10.1093/mnras/stab2597
Abstract
We use Swift blazar spectra to estimate the key intergalactic medium (IGM) properties of hydrogen column density(Nhxigm), metallicity and temperature over a redshift range of 0.03 leq z leq 4.7, using a collisional ionisation equilibrium(CIE) model for the ionised plasma. We adopted a conservative approach to the blazar continuum model given its intrinsic variability and use a range of power law models. We subjected our results to a number of tests and found that the Nhxigm parameter was robust with respect to individual exposure data and co-added spectra for each source, and between Swift and XMM-Newton source data. We also found no relation between Nhxigm and variations in source flux or intrinsic power laws. Though some objects may have a bulk Comptonisation component which could mimic absorption, it did not alter our overall results. The Nhxigm from the combined blazar sample scales as(1+z)^1.8+\-0.2. The mean hydrogen density at z = 0 is n0 = (3.2+\-0.5) x 10^-7 cm^-3. The mean IGM temperature over the full redshift range is log(T\K) = 6.1+\-0.1 and the mean metallicity is [X\H] = -1.62+\-0.04 (Z sim0.02) When combining with the results with a gamma-ray burst (GRB) sample, we find the results are consistent over an extended redshift range of 0.03 leq z leq 6.3. Using our model for blazars and GRBs, we conclude that the IGM contributes substantially to the total absorption seen in both blazar and GRB spectra.
Accepted for publication by the MNRAS. arXiv admin note: text overlap with arXiv:2102.02530
References in corpus (29)
- The EAGLE project: Simulating the evolution and assembly of galaxies and their environments
- A census of baryons in the Universe from localized fast radio bursts
- BAT AGN Spectroscopic Survey - V. X-ray properties of the Swift/BAT 70-month AGN catalog
- The 5th edition of the Roma-BZCAT. A short presentation
- The first ultraviolet quasar stacked spectrum at z=2.4 from WFC3
- The Low-z Intergalactic Medium. III. HI and Metal Absorbers at z<0.4
- On the use of C-stat in testing models for X-ray spectra
- The Properties of Low Redshift Intergalactic O VI Absorbers Determined from High S/N Observations of 14 QSOs with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph
- Spectrum Synthesis Modeling of the X-ray Spectrum of GRO J1655-40 Taken During the 2005 Outburst
- Metallicity of the intergalactic medium using pixel statistics: IV. Oxygen
- Very different X-ray to optical column density ratios in gamma-ray burst afterglows: ionisation in GRB environments
- The Enrichment History of Baryons in the Universe
- The Cosmic Evolution of the Metallicity Distribution of Ionized Gas Traced by Lyman Limit Systems
- First detection of stacked X-ray emission from cosmic web filaments
- Tracing the Cosmic Metal Evolution in the Low-Redshift Intergalactic Medium
- Bulk Comptonization spectra in blazars
- Galaxy gas as obscurer: I. GRBs x-ray galaxies and find a N_H ~ M* relation
- ISMabs: a comprehensive X-ray absorption model for the interstellar medium
- The Dispersion of Fast Radio Bursts from a Structured Intergalactic Medium at Redshifts z < 1.5
- Missing cosmic metals revealed by X-ray absorption towards distant sources
- NuSTAR perspective on high-redshift MeV blazars
- Multiwavelength Study of High-Redshift Blazars
- X-ray spectral properties of high-redshift radio-loud quasars beyond redshift 4--first results
- Intervening Mg II absorption systems from the SDSS DR12 quasar spectra
- Using realistic host galaxy metallicities to improve the GRB X-ray equivalent total hydrogen column density and constrain the intergalactic medium density
- A New Multi-Wavelength Census of Blazars
- Probing the physical properties of the intergalactic medium using gamma-ray bursts
- Detecting neutral hydrogen at z > 3 in large spectroscopic surveys of quasars
- Bulk Comptonization: new hints from the luminous blazar 4C+25.05