Intergalactic Matter Research Articles

On the Origin of High-velocity Clouds in the Galaxy

Abstract The origin of our Galaxy’s high-velocity clouds (HVCs) remains a mystery after many decades of effort. In this paper, we use the TNG50 simulation of the IllustrisTNG project to identify cool, dense clouds that match observations of Galactic H i HVCs. We track these clouds back in time to determine their origin. For a TNG50 Milky Way−like galaxy, we find that only 17% of HVCs can be tracked directly to the disk and 21% to material stripped out of satellites. The majority of HVCs (62%) arise from warm and hot circumgalactic gas that cools through thermal instability. They then obtain their anomalous velocities through interactions with the turbulent circumgalactic medium. At TNG50 resolution, we do not see evidence for HVCs forming out of very low metallicity intergalactic material. Instead, low-metallicity HVCs are most likely associated with satellites. These results suggest that Galactic HVCs are highly heterogeneous in their origin and can provide insight into the physical processes that shape the circumgalactic medium, such as disk outflows, satellite accretion, and thermal instabilities.

Anomalous gas in ESO 149-G003: a MeerKAT-16 view

ABSTRACT ESO 149-G003 is a close-by, isolated dwarf irregular galaxy. Previous observations with the ATCA indicated the presence of anomalous neutral hydrogen ($\rm{H{\small I}}$) deviating from the kinematics of a regularly rotating disc. We conducted follow-up observations with the MeerKAT radio telescope during the 16-dish Early Science programme as well as with the MeerLICHT optical telescope. Our more sensitive radio observations confirm the presence of anomalous gas in ESO 149-G003, and further confirm the formerly tentative detection of an extraplanar $\rm{H{\small I}}$ component in the galaxy. Employing a simple tilted-ring model, in which the kinematics is determined with only four parameters but including morphological asymmetries, we reproduce the galaxy’s morphology, which shows a high degree of asymmetry. By comparing our model with the observed $\rm{H{\small I}}$, we find that in our model, we cannot account for a significant (but not dominant) fraction of the gas. From the differences between our model and the observed data cube, we estimate that at least 7–8 per cent of the $\rm{H{\small I}}$ in the galaxy exhibits anomalous kinematics, while we estimate a minimum mass fraction of less than 1 per cent for the morphologically confirmed extraplanar component. We investigate a number of global scaling relations and find that, besides being gas-dominated with a neutral gas-to-stellar mass ratio of 1.7, the galaxy does not show any obvious global peculiarities. Given its isolation, as confirmed by optical observations, we conclude that the galaxy is likely currently acquiring neutral gas. It is either re-accreting gas expelled from the galaxy or accreting pristine intergalactic material.

Ionization bias and the ghost proximity effect near z ≳ 6 quasars in the shadow of proximate absorption systems

ABSTRACT The larger-than-expected scatter in the opacity of the Ly α forest suggests that the metagalactic ionizing background is strongly fluctuating at $z$ > 5.5. Models for ionizing background fluctuations predict a strong positive bias on large scales, so the environments of massive $\text{$\gt$} 10^{12}\, {\rm M}_\odot$ dark matter haloes, e.g. $z$ ∼ 6 quasar hosts, would be ideal laboratories to constrain the sources of ionizing photons. While the quasars themselves should overwhelm any plausible ionizing photon contribution from neighbouring galaxies, proximate damped Ly α absorbers (DLAs) have recently been discovered in the foreground of $z$ ∼ 6 quasars, and the Ly α forest in the shadow of these DLAs could probe the local ionization environment. Using Gpc3 simulations of $z$ = 6 ionizing background fluctuations, we show that while the Ly α forest signal from ionization bias around a quasar host halo should be strong, it is likely suppressed by the associated intergalactic matter overdensity. We also show that the quasar itself may still overwhelm the clustering signal via a ‘ghost’ of the proximity effect from the quasar radiation, causing a large-scale bias in the ionizing photon mean free path. This ghost proximity effect is sensitive to the lifetime and geometry of quasar emission, potentially unlocking a new avenue for constraining these fundamental quasar properties. Finally, we present observations of a $z$ ∼ 6 quasar with a proximate DLA, which shows a strong excess in Ly α forest transmission at the predicted location of the ghost proximity effect.

Jeans smoothing of the Ly forest absorption lines

We investigate a contribution of the Jeans smoothing to the minimal width of Ly forest lines and discuss how the accounting for this additional broadening affects the inferred parameters of the intergalactic matter equation of state. We estimate a power-law index γ of the equation of state, a temperature at the mean density T0 and a hydrogen photoionization rate Γ within 4 redshift bins. Furthermore, in each bin we obtain an upper limit on the scale-parameter fJ, which sets the relation between the Jeans length and the characteristic physical size of the absorber clouds.

On Mautner-Type Probability of Capture of Intergalactic Meteor Particles by Habitable Exoplanets

Both macro and microprojectiles (e.g., interplanetary, interstellar and even intergalactic material) are seen as important vehicles for the exchange of potential (bio)material within our solar system as well as between stellar systems in our Galaxy. Accordingly, this requires estimates of the impact probabilities for different source populations of projectiles, including for intergalactic meteor particles which have received relatively little attention since considered as rare events (discrete occurrences that are statistically improbable due to their very infrequent appearance). We employ the simple but comprehensive model of intergalactic microprojectile capture by the gravity of exoplanets which enables us to estimate the map of collisional probabilities for an available sample of exoplanets in habitable zones around host stars. The model includes a dynamical description of the capture adopted from Mautner model of interstellar exchange of microparticles and changed for our purposes. We use statistical and information metrics to calculate probability map of intergalactic meteorite particle capture. Moreover, by calculating the entropy index map we estimate the concentration of these rare events. We further adopted a model from immigration theory, to show that the time dependent distribution of single molecule immigration of material indicates high survivability of the immigrated material taking into account birth and death processes on our planet. At present immigration of material can not be observationally constrained but it seems reasonable to think that it will be possible in the near future, and to use it along other proposed parameters for life sustainability on some planet.

On Mautner-Type Probability of Capture of Intergalactic Meteor Particles by Habitable Exoplanets

Both macro and microprojectiles (e.g., interplanetary, interstellar and even intergalactic material)are seen as important vehicles for the exchange of potential (bio)material within our solar system as wellas between stellar systems in our Galaxy. Accordingly, this requires estimates of the impact probabilitiesfor different source populations of projectiles, including for intergalactic meteor particles which havereceived relatively little attention since considered as rare events (discrete occurrences that are statisticallyimprobable due to their very infrequent appearance). We employ the simple but yet comprehensivemodel of intergalactic microprojectile capture by the gravity of exoplanets which enables us to estimatethe map of collisional probabilities for an available sample of exoplanets in habitable zones around hoststars. The model includes a dynamical description of the capture adopted from Mautner model ofinterstellar exchange of microparticles and changed for our purposes. We use statistical and informationmetrics to calculate probability map of intergalactic meteorite particle capture. Moreover, by calculatingthe entropy index map we measure the concentration of these rare events. We further adopted a modelfrom immigration theory, to show that the transient distribution of birth/death/immigration of materialfor the simplest case has a high value.

On Mautner-Type Probability of Capture of Intergalactic Meteor Particles by Habitable Exoplanets

Both macro and microprojectiles (e.g., interplanetary, interstellar and even intergalactic material) are seen as an important vehicle for the exchange of (bio)material within our solar system as well as between stellar systems in our Galaxy. Accordingly, this requires estimates of the impact probabilities for different source populations of projectiles, specifically for intergalactic meteor particles which have received relatively little attention since considered as rare events (discrete occurrences that are statistically improbable due to their very infrequent appearance). We employ the simple but yet comprehensive model of intergalactic microprojectile capture by the gravity of exoplanets which enables us to estimate the map of collisional probabilities for an available sample of exoplanets in habitable zones around host stars. The model includes a dynamical description of the caption adopted from Mautner model of interstellar exchange of microparticles and changed for our purposes. We use statistical and information metrics to calculate probability map of intergalactic meteorite particle capture. Moreover, by calculating the entropy index map we measure the concentration of these rare events. By adopting a model from immigration theory, we show that the transient distribution of birth/death/immigration of material for the simplest case has a high value.

Deuteron and antideuteron production simulation in cosmic-ray interactions

The study of the cosmic-ray deuteron and antideuteron flux receives an increasing interest in current astrophysics investigations. For both cases an important contribution is expected from the nuclear interactions of primary cosmic rays with intergalactic matter. In this work, deuteron and antideuteron production from 20 to 2.6$\times$10$^{7}$ GeV beam energy in p+p and p+A collisions were simulated using EPOS-LHC and Geant4's FTFP-BERT Monte Carlo models by adding an event-by-event coalescence model afterburner. These estimates depend on a single parameter ($p_0$) obtained from a fit to the data. The $p_0$ for deuterons in this wide energy range was evaluated for the first time. It was found that $p_0$ for antideuterons is not a constant at all energies as previous works suggested and as a consequence the antideuteron production cross section can be at least 20 times smaller in the low collision energy region, than earlier estimations.

The Spread of Metals into the Low-redshift Intergalactic Medium

Abstract We investigate the association between galaxies and metal-enriched and metal-deficient absorbers in the local universe (z < 0.16) using a large compilation of far-ultraviolet spectra of bright active galactic nuclei targets observed with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph aboard the Hubble Space Telescope. In this homogeneous sample of 18 O vi detections at and 18 nondetections at using absorbers with , the maximum distance O vi extends from galaxies of various luminosities is ∼0.6 Mpc, or ∼5 virial radii, confirming and refining earlier results. This is an important value that must be matched by numerical simulations, which input the strength of galactic winds at the sub-grid level. We present evidence that the primary contributors to the spread of metals into the circum- and intergalactic media are sub-L* galaxies ( ). The maximum distances that metals are transported from these galaxies is comparable to, or less than, the size of a group of galaxies. These results suggest that, where groups are present, the metals produced by the group galaxies do not leave the group. Since many O vi nondetections in our sample occur at comparably close impact parameters as those of the metal-bearing absorbers, some more pristine intergalactic material appears to be accreting onto groups where it can mix with metal-bearing clouds.

MORPHOLOGY OF DWARF GALAXIES IN ISOLATED SATELLITE SYSTEMS

The environmental dependence of the morphology of dwarf galaxies in isolated satellite systems is analyzed to understand the origin of the dwarf galaxy morphology using the visually classified morphological types of 5836 local galaxies with $z \lesssim 0.01$. We consider six sub-types of dwarf galaxies, dS0, dE, dE$_{bc}$, dSph, dE$_{blue}$, and dI, of which the first four sub-types are considered as early-type and the last two as late-type. The environmental parameters we consider are the projected distance from the host galaxy ($r_{p}$), local and global background densities, and the host morphology. The spatial distributions of dwarf satellites of early-type galaxies are much different from those of dwarf satellites of late-type galaxies, suggesting the host morphology combined with $r_{p}$ plays a decisive role on the morphology of the dwarf satellite galaxies. The local and global background densities play no significant role on the morphology of dwarfs in the satellite systems hosted by early-type galaxies. However, in the satellite system hosted by late-type galaxies, the global background densities of dE and dSph satellites are significantly different from those of dE$_{bc}$, dE$_{blue}$, and dI satellites. The blue-cored dwarf satellites (dE$_{bc}$) of early-type galaxies are likely to be located at $r_{p} > 0.3$ Mpc to keep their cold gas from the ram pressure stripping by the hot corona of early-type galaxies. The spatial distribution of dE$_{bc}$ satellites of early-type galaxies and their global background densities suggest that their cold gas is intergalactic material accreted before they fall into the satellite systems.

CONTRIBUTION OF NEUTRON STAR MERGERS TO THE r-PROCESS CHEMICAL EVOLUTION IN THE HIERARCHICAL GALAXY FORMATION

ABSTRACT The main astronomical source of r-process elements has not yet been identified. One plausible site is neutron star mergers (NSMs), but from the perspective of the Galactic chemical evolution, it has been pointed out that NSMs cannot reproduce the observed r-process abundance distribution of metal-poor stars at . Recently, Tsujimoto & Shigeyama pointed out that NSM ejecta can spread into a much larger volume than ejecta from a supernova. We re-examine the enrichment of r-process elements by NSMs considering this difference in propagation using the chemical evolution model under the hierarchical galaxy formation. The observed r-process enhanced stars around are reproduced if the star formation efficiency is lower for low-mass galaxies under a realistic delay-time distribution for NSMs. We show that a significant fraction of NSM ejecta escape from its host proto-galaxy to pollute intergalactic matter and other proto-galaxies. The propagation of r-process elements over proto-galaxies changes the abundance distribution at and obtains distribution compatible with observations of the Milky Way halo stars. In particular, the pre-enrichment of intergalactic medium explains the observed scarcity of extremely metal-poor stars without Ba and abundance distribution of r-process elements at .

Possible signature of distant foreground in the Planck data

By using the Planck map of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation, we have checked and confirmed the existence of a correlation between supernova (SN) redshifts, zSN, and CMB temperature fluctuations at the SNe locations, TSN, which we previously reported for the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe data. The Pearson correlation coefficient for the Planck data is r = +0.38 ± 0.08, which indicates that the correlation is statistically significant (the signal is about 5σ above the noise level). The correlation becomes even stronger for the Type Ia subsample of SNe, rIa = +0.45 ± 0.09, whereas for the rest of the SNe it is vanishing. By checking the slopes of the regression lines TSN/zSN for Planck's different frequency bands, we have also excluded the possibility of this anomaly being caused by the Sunyaev–Zeldovich effect. The remaining possibility is some, unaccounted for, contribution to the CMB from distant (z > 0.3) foreground through either the integrated Sachs–Wolfe effect or thermal emission from intergalactic matter.

Intergalactic magnetic fields in Stephan's Quintet

We present results of the VLA radio continuum total power and polarised intensity observations of Stephan's Quintet at 1.43 and 4.86 GHz along with complementary 4.85 and 8.35 GHz Effelsberg observations. Our study shows a large envelope of radio emission encompassing all the member galaxies and hence a large volume of intergalac- tic matter. Infall of the galaxy NGC 7318B produces a ridge of intergalactic, polarised emission, for which the magnetic field strength was estimated as 11.0 \pm 2.2 {\mu}G, with an ordered component of 2.6 \pm 0.8 {\mu}G. The energy density of the field within the ridge area is of the same order as estimates of the thermal component, implying a significant role of the magnetic field in the dynamics of the intergalactic matter. We also report that the tidal dwarf galaxy candidate SQ-B possesses a strong and highly anisotropic magnetic field with the total strength being equal to 6.5 \pm 1.9 {\mu}G and an ordered component reaching 3.5 \pm 1.2 {\mu}G, which is comparable to that found in normal-sized galaxies.

The influence of halo evolution on galaxy structure

AbstractIf Einstein-Newton gravity holds on galactic and larger scales, then current observations demonstrate that the stars and interstellar gas of a typical bright galaxy account for only a few percent of its total nonlinear mass. Dark matter makes up the rest and cannot be faint stars or any other baryonic form because it was already present and decoupled from the radiation plasma at z = 1000, long before any nonlinear object formed. The weak gravito-sonic waves so precisely measured by CMB observations are detected again at z = 4 as order unity fluctuations in intergalactic matter. These subsequently collapse to form today's galaxy/halo systems, whose mean mass profiles can be accurately determined through gravitational lensing. High-resolution simulations link the observed dark matter structures seen at all these epochs, demonstrating that they are consistent and providing detailed predictions for all aspects of halo structure and growth. Requiring consistency with the abundance and clustering of real galaxies strongly constrains the galaxy-halo relation, both today and at high redshift. This results in detailed predictions for galaxy assembly histories and for the gravitational arena in which galaxies live. Dark halos are not expected to be passive or symmetric but to have a rich and continually evolving structure which will drive evolution in the central galaxy over its full life, exciting warps, spiral patterns and tidal arms, thickening disks, producing rings, bars and bulges. Their growth is closely related to the provision of new gas for galaxy building.

The mass distribution in the galaxy cluster Abell 2744

The mass distribution for the galaxy cluster Abell 2744 (z = 0.308) is investigated on the base of the archival X-ray data of the Chandra observatory. The temperature of the hot gas in the cluster (kT = 9.82 −0.41 +0.43 keV) and the cluster total mass (M 200 = 2.22 −0.12 +0.13 × 1015 M ⊙) for the radius R 200 = 2.38 −0.31 +0.36 Mpc are estimated. The density and mass profiles for the intergalactic gas and dark matter are obtained. The fractions of the intergalactic gas and dark matter in the total mass of the cluster are 15.4 −1.3 +1.3 % and 84.6 −1.3 +1.4 %, respectively.

Spectrophotometric measurement of the Extragalacic Background Light

AbstractThe Extragalactic Background Light (EBL) at UV, optical and NIR wavelengths consists of the integrated light of all unresolved galaxies along the line of sight plus any contributions by intergalactic matter including hypothetical decaying relic particles. The measurement of the EBL has turned out to be a tedious problem. This is because of the foreground components of the night sky brightness, much larger than the EBL itself: the Zodiacal Light (ZL), Integrated Starlight (ISL), Diffuse Galactic Light (DGL) and, for ground-based observations, the Airglow (AGL) and the tropospheric scattered light. We have been developing a method for the EBL measurement which utilises the screening effect of a dark nebula on the EBL. A differential measurement in the direction of a high-latitude dark nebula and its surrounding area provides a signal that is due to two components only, i.e. the EBL and the diffusely scattered ISL from the cloud. We present a progress report of this method where we are now utilising intermediate resolution spectroscopy with ESO's VLT telescope. We detect and remove the scattered ISL component by using its characteristic Fraunhofer line spectral signature. In contrast to the ISL, in the EBL spectrum all spectral lines are washed out. We present a high quality spectrum representing the difference between an opaque position within our target cloud and several clear OFF positions around the cloud. We derive a preliminary EBL value at 400 nm and an upper limit to the EBL at 520 nm. These values are in the same range as the EBL lower limits derived from galaxy counts.Unit: We will use in this paper the abbreviation 1 cgs = 10−9erg s−1cm−2sr−1Å−1

Large-scale environmental bias of the high-redshift quasar line-of-sight proximity effect

We analyse the proximity zone of the intergalactic matter around high-redshift quasars in a cosmological environment. In a box of 64 h-1 Mpc base length we employ dark matter only simulations. For estimating the hydrogen temperature and density distribution we use the effective equation of state. Hydrogen is assumed to be in photoionisation equilibrium with a model background flux which is fit to recent observations of the mean optical depth and transmission flux statistics. At redshifts z = 3, 4, and 4.8, we select model quasar positions at the centre of the 20 most massive halos and 100 less massive halos identified in the simulation. From each assumed quasar position we cast 100 random lines of sight for two box length including the changes in the ionisation fractions by the QSO flux field and derive mock Ly{\alpha} spectra. The proximity effect describes the dependence of the mean normalised optical depth {\xi} = {\tau}eff, QSO/{\tau}eff, Ly{\alpha} as a function of the ratio of the ionisation rate by the QSO and the background field, {\omega} = {\Gamma}QSO/{\Gamma}UVB, i.e. the profile {\xi} = (1 + {\omega}/a)-0.5, where a strength parameter a is introduced. The strength parameter measures the deviation from the theoretical background model and is used to quantify any influence of the environmental density field. We reproduce an unbiased measurement of the proximity effect which is not affected by the host halo mass. The scatter between different lines of sight and different quasar host positions increases with decreasing redshift. Around the host halos, we find only a slight average overdensity in the proximity zone at comoving radii of 1 < rc < 10h-1 Mpc. However, a clear power-law correlation of the strength parameter with the average overdensity in rc is found, showing an overestimation of the ionising background in overdense regions and an underestimation in underdense regions.

Cosmological magnetic field seeds produced by the Weibel instabilities

AbstractThe source of the cosmological magnetic field is still unknown because the widely invoked dynamo processes are only able to regenerate and amplify some initial magnetic field seeds. In the hot and highly ionized intergalactic matter such magnetic field seeds can easily be produced by the (electro-)magnetic instabilities of Weibel type. Here we discuss suplementary mechanisms that can make these Weibel created fields to evolve at large scales presently observed in galaxies and clusters and can also enhance these magnetic field seeds after the dissipation.

Cosmology with equivalence principle breaking in the dark sector

A long-range force acting only between nonbaryonic particles would be associated with a large violation of the weak equivalence principle. We explore cosmological consequences of this idea, which we label ReBEL (daRk Breaking Equivalence principLe). A high resolution hydrodynamical simulation of the distributions of baryons and dark matter confirms our previous findings that a ReBEL force of comparable strength to gravity on comoving scales of about 1 Mpc/h causes voids between the concentrations of large galaxies to be more nearly empty, suppresses accretion of intergalactic matter onto galaxies at low redshift, and produces an early generation of dense dark matter halos. A preliminary analysis indicates the ReBEL scenario is consistent with the one-dimensional power spectrum of the Lyman-Alpha forest and the three-dimensional galaxy auto-correlation function. Segregation of baryons and DM in galaxies and systems of galaxies is a strong prediction of ReBEL. ReBEL naturally correlates the baryon mass fraction in groups and clusters of galaxies with the system mass, in agreement with recent measurements.

Galactic archeology with extremely metal-poor stars

AbstractExtremely metal-poor (EMP) stars are thought to be formed in the low-mass protogalaxies as building blocks of the Milky Way and can be probes to investigate the early stage of galaxy formation and star formation in the early universe. We study the formation history of EMP stars in the Milky Way halo using a new model of chemical evolution based on the hierarchical theory of the galaxy formation. We construct the merging history of the Milky Way halo based on the extended Press-Schechter formalism, and follow the star formation and chemical evolution along the merger tree. The abundance trends and number of low-mass stars predicted in our model are compared with those of observed EMP stars. Additionally, in order to clarify the origin of hyper metal poor stars, we investigate the change of the surface metal abundances of stars by accretion of interstellar matter. We also investigate the pre-enrichment of intergalactic matter by the first supernovae.