The Enrichment History of the Intergalactic Medium: Measuring the CIV/HI Ratio in the Lyman Alpha Forest

Abstract

We have obtained an exceptionally high S/N, high resolution spectrum of the gravitationally lensed quasar Q1422+231 in order to investigate the metal enrichment of the IGM. A column density distribution function (CDDF) is determined for CIV, which is well fit by a power law with index 1.44 +/- 0.05. Once a correction for incompleteness is applied, we find that the CDDF is consistent with a power law down to log N(CIV) = 11.75, a factor of 10 more sensitive than previously determined. In order to determine whether the CIV enrichment extends to even lower column density HI clouds, we find that an analysis of individual pixel optical depths is more robust than the stacking technique. The results obtained from this optical depth method are compared with analyses of simulated spectra enriched with varying CIV enrichment recipes. From these simulations, we conclude that more CIV than is currently directly detected in Q1422+231 is required to reproduce the optical depths determined from the data, consistent with the conclusions drawn from consideration of the power law distribution. (Abridged)

Accepted for publication by AJ. 10 pages of text plus 11 figures and 2 tables

References in corpus (1)

• Lyman alpha Absorption Systems and the Intergalactic Medium

Cited by in corpus (160)

• The Origin of the Mass--Metallicity Relation: Insights from 53,000 Star-Forming Galaxies in the SDSS
• Galactic Winds
• The Formation of the First Star in the Universe
• In the Beginning: The First Sources of Light and the Reionization of the Universe
• The Mass-Metallicity Relation at z~2
• A unified model for AGN feedback in cosmological simulations of structure formation
• The Dust Opacity of Star-Forming Galaxies
• Cosmological Simulations of Intergalactic Medium Enrichment from Galactic Outflows
• Galaxies and Intergalactic Matter at Redshift z~3: Overview
• The Enrichment of the Intergalactic Medium with Adiabatic Feedback I: Metal Cooling and Metal Diffusion
• Metallicity of the intergalactic medium using pixel statistics. II. The distribution of metals as traced by C IV
• Simulations of Pregalactic Structure Formation with Radiative Feedback
• The Metallicity-Luminosity Relation, Effective Yields, and Metal Loss in Spiral and Irregular Galaxies
• The Physics of the Intergalactic Medium
• The First Cosmic Structures and their Effects
• The Reionization of the Universe by the First Stars and Quasars
• The Gaseous Environment of High-z Galaxies: Precision Measurements of Neutral Hydrogen in the Circumgalactic Medium of z ~ 2-3 Galaxies in the Keck Baryonic Structure Survey
• The Evolution of the Intergalactic Medium
• Early Metal Enrichment of the Intergalactic Medium by Pregalactic Outflows
• Demographics and Physical Properties of Gas Out/Inflows at 0.4 < z < 1.4
• On the onset of galactic winds in quiescent star forming galaxies
• Cosmic dynamics in the era of Extremely Large Telescopes
• The Minimum Universal Metal Density Between Redshifts of 1.5 and 5.5
• The Low-z Intergalactic Medium. III. HI and Metal Absorbers at z<0.4
• Early Metal Enrichment by Pregalactic Outflows: II. Simulations of Blow-away
• The Distribution of Metallicity in the IGM at z~2.5: OVI and CIV Absorption in the Spectra of 7 QSOs
• Metal Enrichment of the Intergalactic Medium in Cosmological Simulations
• Constraints on star-formation driven galaxy winds from the mass-metallicity relation at z=0
• The Detectability of the First Stars and Their Cluster Enrichment Signatures
• Reionization by Hard Photons: I. X-rays from the First Star Clusters
• Metal-line absorption around $z\approx$2.4 star-forming galaxies in the Keck Baryonic Structure Survey
• Constraints on Warm Dark Matter from Cosmological Reionization
• Early Enrichment of the Intergalactic Medium and its Feedback on Galaxy Formation
• Metal Enrichment of the Intergalactic Medium at z=3 by Galactic Winds
• Simulating IGM Reionization
• FUSE Observations of Outflowing OVI in the Dwarf Starburst Galaxy NGC1705
• Galactic winds in the intergalactic medium
• A downturn in intergalactic CIV as redshift 6 is approached
• Effects of a Soft X-ray Background on Structure Formation at High Redshift
• The C IV Mass Density of the Universe at Redshift 5
• Metallicity of the intergalactic medium using pixel statistics: III. Silicon
• Magnetic fields in Local Group dwarf irregulars
• Metallicity of the intergalactic medium using pixel statistics: IV. Oxygen
• Small Scale Structure at High Redshift: II. Physical Properties of the CIV Absorbing Clouds
• The Sources of Intergalactic Metals
• Constraints on the Universal CIV Mass Density at z~6 from Early IR Spectra Obtained with the Magellan FIRE Spectrograph
• Evolution and Nucleosynthesis of Zero Metal Intermediate Mass Stars
• Characterizing the Warm-Hot IGM at High Redshift: A High Resolution Survey for O VI at z = 2.5
• Metal Absorption Lines as Probes of the Intergalactic Medium Prior to the Reionization Epoch
• Systematic search for extremely metal poor galaxies in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Metals in the Intergalactic Medium
• The HETDEX Pilot Survey V: The Physical Origin of Lyman-alpha Emitters Probed by Near-infrared Spectroscopy
• The Properties of Intergalactic C IV and Si IV Absorption, I: Optimal Analysis of an Extremely High S/N Quasar Sample
• The Sizes and Kinematic Structure of Absorption Systems Towards the Lensed Quasar APM08279+5255
• SDSS-IV MaNGA: What Shapes The Distribution Of Metals In Galaxies? Exploring The Roles Of The Local Gas Fraction And Escape Velocity
• Neutral hydrogen optical depth near star-forming galaxies at z~2.4 in the Keck Baryonic Structure Survey
• C IV absorption in damped and sub-damped Lyman-alpha systems: correlations with metallicity and implications for galactic winds at z~2-3
• The enrichment history of the intergalactic medium: O VI in Ly-alpha forest systems at redshift z ~ 2
• The Cosmic Evolution of the Metallicity Distribution of Ionized Gas Traced by Lyman Limit Systems
• Probing the IGM/Galaxy Connection Toward PKS0405-123 I: UV Spectroscopy and Metal-Line Systems
• Transverse Sizes of CIV Absorption Systems Measured from Multiple QSO Sightlines
• IGM metal enrichment through dust sputtering
• The Last Eight-Billion Years of Intergalactic CIV Evolution
• The rise of the C IV mass density at z<2.5
• A comparison of observed and simulated absorption from HI, CIV, and SiIV around $z\approx 2$ star-forming galaxies suggests redshift-space distortions are due to inflows
• Did Very Massive Stars Pre-enrich and Reionize the Universe?
• Estimation of Carbon Abundances in Metal-Poor Stars. I. Application to the "Strong G-band" stars of Beers, Preston, & Shectman
• Precious Metals in SDSS Quasar Spectra I: Tracking the Evolution of Strong, 1.5 < z < 4.5 CIV Absorbers with Thousands of Systems
• X-ray Absorption by the Low-redshift Intergalactic Medium: A Numerical Study of the Lambda CDM model
• The Heavy Element Enrichment of Lyman alpha Clouds in the Virgo Supercluster
• The nature of proximate damped Lyman alpha systems
• Probing the Dark Ages with Metal Absorption Lines
• Cosmological Feedback from High-Redshift Dwarf Galaxies
• Metallicity of the Intergalactic Medium Using Pixel Statistics: I. Method
• Confronting cosmological simulations with observations of intergalactic metals
• The effect of variations in the input physics on the cosmic distribution of metals predicted by simulations
• The enrichment history of cosmic metals
• Observational signatures of feedback in QSO absorption spectra
• The Contribution of Population III to the Enrichment and Preheating of the Intracluster Medium
• Numerical Simulations of High Redshift Star Formation in Dwarf Galaxies
• Galactic Chemical Abundances at z>3 I: First Results from the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager
• The Carbon Content of Intergalactic Gas at z=4.25 and its Evolution Toward z=2.4
• Enrichment of the Intergalactic Medium by Radiation Pressure Driven Dust Efflux
• Properties of QSO Metal Line Absorption Systems at High Redshifts: Nature and Evolution of the Absorbers and New Evidence on Escape of Ionizing Radiation from Galaxies
• Extreme Ultraviolet Absorption Lines in LyA Forest Absorbers and the Oxygen Abundance in the Intergalactic Medium
• The Implications of the New Z=0 Stellar Models and Yields on the Early Metal Pollution of the Intergalactic Medium
• How Do Supernovae Impact the Circumgalactic Medium? I. Large-Scale Fountains Around a Milky Way-Like Galaxy
• Theoretical Light Curves of Type II-P SNe and Applications to Cosmology
• The filling factor of intergalactic metals at redshift z=3
• Constrained semi-analytical models of Galactic outflows
• The number and metallicities of the most metal-poor stars
• Detection of hot, metal-enriched outflowing gas around $z\approx$2.3 star-forming galaxies in the Keck Baryonic Structure Survey
• Discovery of a Dwarf Post-Starburst Galaxy Near a High Column Density Ly-alpha Absorber
• The Unchanging Circumgalactic Medium Over the Past 11 Billion Years
• Metals in the z~3 intergalactic medium: results from an ultra-high signal-to-noise ratio UVES quasar spectrum
• Multicomponent and Variable Velocity Galactic Outflow in Cosmological Hydrodynamic Simulations
• CRASH3: cosmological radiative transfer through metals
• The Ionizing Efficiency of the First Stars
• Expansion and Collapse in the Cosmic Web
• A Deep Search For Faint Galaxies Associated With Very Low-redshift C IV Absorbers: II. Program Design, Absorption-line Measurements, and Absorber Statistics
• Intervening Metal Systems in GRB and QSO sight-lines: The Mgii and Civ Question
• Pixel correlation searches for OVI in the Lyman alpha forest and the volume filling factor of metals in the Intergalactic Medium at z ~ 2-3.5
• The Composite Spectrum of Strong Lyman-alpha Forest Absorbers
• The Probability Distribution of the Lya transmitted flux from a sample of SDSS quasars
• A high resolution study of intergalactic O VI absorbers at z~2.3
• The evolution of the Si IV content in the Universe from the epoch of reionization to cosmic noon
• Observations of metals in the $z\approx 3.5$ intergalactic medium and comparison to the EAGLE simulations
• The Lyman-alpha forest of a Lyman Break Galaxy: VLT Spectra of MS1512-cB58 at z=2.724
• A measurement of galaxy halo mass from the surrounding HI Lyα absorption
• The Clustering of Intergalactic Metals
• The Absorption and Emission Kinematics in the z=0.7450 Mg II Absorber Towards Q1331+17
• Ultraviolet Line Emission from Metals in the Low-Redshift Intergalactic Medium
• The Properties of Intergalactic CIV Absorption II: Which Systems Are Associated With Galaxy Outflows?
• Clues to the nature of high-redshift OVI absorption systems from their (lack of) small-scale structure
• Turbulence in the Intergalactic Medium
• KODIAQ-Z: Metals and Baryons in the Cool Intergalactic and Circumgalactic Gas at 2.2<z<3.6
• A hydrodynamical study of outflows in starburst galaxies with different driving mechanisms
• The clustering of Luminous Red Galaxies around MgII absorbers
• MUSE Analysis of Gas around Galaxies (MAGG) -- V: Linking ionized gas traced by CIV and SiIV absorbers to Ly$\alpha$ emitting galaxies at $z\approx 3.0-4.5$
• The Metallicity of Intergalactic Gas in Cosmic Voids
• Search for blue compact dwarf galaxies during quiescence II: metallicities of gas and stars, ages, and star-formation rates
• Metal enrichment and evolution in four z > 6.5 quasar sightlines observed with JWST/NIRSpec
• The nature of NV absorbers at high redshift
• Early Enrichment of Quasars by First Stars
• The impact of spatial fluctuations in the ultra-violet background on intergalactic carbon and silicon
• Gas-phase metallicity break radii of star-forming galaxies in IllustrisTNG
• MgII Absorption at 2 < z < 6 with Magellan / FIRE. II: A Longitudinal Study of HI, Metals, and Ionization in Galactic Haloes
• A Search for Oxygen in the Low-Density Lyman-alpha Forest Using the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Metallicities and dust content of proximate damped Lyman alpha systems in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey
• Gravitational wave background from Population III black hole formation
• Stochastic background of gravitational waves generated by pre-galactic black holes
• Metal abundances and kinematics of quasar absorbers - II. Absorption systems toward Q0347-3819 and APM BR J0307-4945
• The Chemical Evolution of the Universe I: High Column Density Absorbers
• Warm-hot gas in groups and galaxies toward H2356-309
• Probing Reionization and Early Cosmic Enrichment with the MgII Forest
• Hunting for Metals Using XQ-100 Legacy Survey Composite Spectra
• MUSEQuBES: The relation between Ly$\alpha$ emitters and C IV absorbers at $z\approx 3.3$
• Physical properties and small-scale structure of the Lyman-alpha forest: Inversion of the HE 1122-1628 UVES spectrum
• Observations of the High Redshift Universe
• Revisiting the He II to H I ratio in the Intergalactic Medium
• Chemical Composition of the Early Universe
• Constraining IGM enrichment and metallicity with the C IV forest correlation function
• The extent of intergalactic metal enrichment from galactic winds during the Cosmic Dawn
• A framework to measure the properties of intergalactic metal systems with two-point flux statistics
• Metal Lines Associated with the Lyman-alpha Forest from eBOSS Data
• Gas Accretion via Lyman Limit Systems
• Evidence of bimodal physical properties of intervening, optically-thin CIII absorbers at z ~ 2.5
• Transonic galactic outflows in a dark matter halo with a central black hole and its application to the Sombrero galaxy
• Transverse clues on the kpc-scale structure of the circumgalactic medium as traced by C IV absorption
• Transonic solutions of isothermal galactic winds in a cold dark matter halo
• Triple-ionised carbon associated with the low-density neutral hydrogen gas at 1.7 < z < 3.3: the integrated N(HI)-N(CIV) relation
• Galaxy Formation and Symbiotic Evolution with the Inter-Galactic Medium in the Age of ELT-ANDES
• CIV Absorbers in z>4 Quasars: Tracing Early Galactic Halos Evolution
• Background of gravitational waves from pre-galactic black hole formation
• A metal-line strength indicator for Damped Lyman Alpha (DLA) systems at low signal-to-noise
• Metal Enrichment and Reionization Constraints on Early Star Formation
• Metal Enrichment of the Intergalactic Medium and Production of Massive Black Holes
• A high-redshift quasar absorber without CIV - a galactic outflow caught in the act?
• Evidence for overdensity around z_em > 4 quasars from the proximity effect
• Detecting the IGM metal enrichment with the 2-point correlation function of the flux. Application to the UVES deep spectrum