Constraining the Size of the Circumgalactic Medium Using the Transverse Autocorrelation Function of C IV Absorbers in Paired Quasar Spectra

Abstract

The circumgalactic medium (CGM) plays a vital role in the formation and evolution of galaxies, acting as a lifeline between galaxies and the surrounding intergalactic medium (IGM). In this study we leverage a unique sample of quasar pairs to investigate the properties of the CGM with absorption line tomography. We present a new sample of medium resolution Keck/ESI, Magellan/MagE, and VLT/XSHOOTER spectra of 29 quasar pairs at redshift $2<z<3$. We supplement the sample with additional spectra of 32 pairs from the literature, creating a catalog of 61 quasar pairs with angular separations between 1.7" and 132.9" and projected physical separations ($r_{\perp }$) between 14 kpc and 887 kpc. We construct a catalog of 906 metal-line absorption doublets of C IV ($\lambda \lambda 1548,1550$) with equivalent widths ranging from 6 mÅ $\le W_{r,1550}\le 2053$ mÅ. The best fit linear model to the log-space equivalent width frequency distribution ($\log f(W_r)=m\log (W_r)+b$) of the sample yields coefficients of $m=-1.44\pm 0.16$ and $b=-0.43\pm 0.16$. To constrain the projected extent of C IV, we calculate the transverse autocorrelation function. The flattening of the autocorrelation function at low $r_{\perp }$ provides a lower limit for the coherence length of the metal enriched CGM - on the order of 200 $h^{-1}$ comoving kpc. This physical size constraint allows us to refine our understanding of the metals in the CGM, where the extent of C IV in the CGM depends on gas flows, feedback, timescale of metal injection and mixing, and the mass of the host galaxies.

arXiv comment19 pages, 8 figures, 2 tables, Accepted for publication by The Astronomical Journal

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