High-velocity clouds and extended gaseous galactic halos

Abstract

This contribution summarizes some recent results concerning gas in Galaxy halos. In the past few years, distances have been determined for six high-velocity clouds (HVCs), including the second largest, complex C. The derived distances range from about 2 to 10 kpc, placing these HVCs in the near Galactic halo, but far above the Galactic plane. Distances of ∼10 kpc were determined to three different concentrations in Complex C, implying a mass of ∼5 × 10 7 M ⊙ ; this cloud is known to have a metallicity of ∼0.15 solar, and represents an inflow of 0.15–0.25 M ⊙ yr −1 of low-metallicity material. A statistical analysis of the sky and velocity distribution of the ∼200 small HVCs shows that they probably form a population of clouds orbiting the Milky Way, with distances up to 80 kpc, and a radial inflow component of 50 km s −1 . A study of 115 Lyα and 14 O VI absorption lines at redshifts z v −1 ) in the spectra of 76 AGNs shows that half of the intergalactic Lyα absorption lines originate within 450 kpc of galaxies. The amount of gas inside this distance is a factor 2–4 more than the total amount of mass inside the galaxies.