Low-Metallicity Gas Clouds in a Galaxy Proto-Cluster at Redshift 2.38
arXiv:astro-ph/0401257 · doi:10.1086/382590
Abstract
We present high resolution spectroscopy of a QSO whose sight-line passes through the halo of a pair of elliptical galaxies at redshift 2.38. This pair of galaxies probably lies at the center of a galaxy proto-cluster, and is embedded in a luminous extended Ly-alpha nebula. The QSO sight-line intersects two small gas clouds within this halo. These clouds have properties similar to those of high velocity clouds (HVCs) seen in the halo of the Milky Way. The gas is in a cool (< 2 x 10^4 K) and at least 20% neutral phase, with metallicities in the range -3.0 < [Fe/H] < -1.1 and neutral hydrogen column densities of ~10^19.5 /cm^2. The origin of these clouds is unclear. The presence of low metallicity gas within this possible proto-cluster implies either that the intra-cluster medium has not been enriched with metals at this redshift, or the clouds are embedded within a hot, ionized, metal-rich gas phase.
Accepted to appear in ApJ Letters
References in corpus (3)
Cited by in corpus (10)
- The realm of the galaxy protoclusters
- A SINFONI Integral Field Spectroscopy Survey for Galaxy Counterparts to Damped Lyman-alpha Systems - I. New Detections and Limits for Intervening and Associated Absorbers
- Resolving the optical emission lines of Lya blob 'B1' at z=2.38: another hidden quasar
- A study of the circum-galactic medium at z ~ 0.6 using DLA-galaxies
- The Mysterious Absence of Neutral Hydrogen within One Mpc of a Luminous Quasar at Redshift 2.168
- Ultraviolet-Bright, High-Redshift ULIRGS
- The Distribution of Ly-alpha-Emitting Galaxies at z=2.38: Paper 2, Spectroscopy
- Hot Gas, Cold Gas and Sub-Halos in a Lyman-alpha Blob at Redshift 2.38
- Magellan LDSS3 emission confirmation of galaxies hosting metal-rich Lyman-alpha absorption systems
- A Damped Ly-alpha Absorption-line System in an Apparent Void at Redshift 2.38