The association between gas and galaxies I: CFHT spectroscopy and pair analysis

Abstract

We investigate the relative distribution of the gaseous contents of the Universe (as traced by a sample of Lyman alpha (lya) absorbers), and the luminous baryonic matter (as traced by a redshift survey of galaxies in the same volume searched for lya absorbers), along 16 lines-of-sight (LOS) between redshifts 0 and 1. Our galaxy redshift survey was made with the Multi-Object Spectrograph (MOS) on Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) and, when combined with galaxies from the literature in the same LOS, gives us a galaxy sample of 636 objects. By combining this with an absorption line sample of 406 absorbing systems drawn from published works, we are able to study the relationship between gas and galaxies over the latter half of the age of the Universe. A correlation between absorbers and galaxies is detected out to separation of 1.5 Mpc. This correlation is weaker than the galaxy-galaxy correlation. There is also some evidence that the absorbing systems seen in CIV are more closely related to galaxies, although this correlation could be with column density rather than metallicity. The above results are all consistent with the absorbing gas and the galaxies co-existing in dark matter filaments and knots as predicted by current models, where the column density of the absorbing gas is correlated with the underlying matter density.

26 pages, 32 figures, accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

Cited by in corpus (22)

• The Physics of the Intergalactic Medium
• 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
• Probing the IGM/Galaxy Connection V: On the Origin of Lya and OVI Absorption at z<0.2
• The Bimodal Metallicity Distribution of the Cool Circumgalactic Medium at z<1
• Galactic and Circumgalactic OVI and its Impact on the Cosmological Metal and Baryon Budgets at 2<z<3.5
• The Keck Baryonic Structure Survey: Using foreground/background galaxy pairs to trace the structure and kinematics of circumgalactic neutral hydrogen at $z\sim 2$
• A Pilot Survey for KX QSOs in the UKIDSS Ultra Deep Survey Field
• On the connection between the intergalactic medium and galaxies: The HI-galaxy cross-correlation at z < 1
• Probing the intra-group medium of a z = 0.28 galaxy group
• Calibrating Galaxy Redshifts Using Absorption by the Surrounding Intergalactic Medium
• Quasar Sightline and Galaxy Evolution (QSAGE) Survey - I. The Galaxy Environment of OVI Absorbers up to z=1.4 around PKS 0232-04
• Large Scale Structure in Absorption: Gas within and around Galaxy Voids
• The VLT LBG Redshift Survey - VI. Mapping HI in the proximity of $z\sim 3$ LBGs with X-Shooter
• The association between gas and galaxies II: The 2-point correlation function
• Galaxies at Redshift ~0.5 Around Three Closely Spaced Quasar Sightlines
• On the connection between the metal-enriched intergalactic medium and galaxies: an OVI-galaxy cross-correlation study at $z<1$
• On the relation between Lya absorbers and local galaxy filaments
• The relationship between gas and galaxies at z<1 using the Q0107 quasar triplet
• The association between gas and galaxies III: The Cross-correlation of Galaxies and Ly-alpha Absorbers at z ~ 1
• The relation between Lyman-alpha absorbers and gas--rich galaxies in the local universe
• The Nearby Damped Lyman-alpha Absorber SBS 1543+593: A Large HI Envelope in a Gas-Rich Galaxy Group
• Modelling gas around galaxy pairs and groups using the Q0107 quasar triplet