Absorption signatures of warm-hot gas at low redshift: O vi
Absorption signatures of warm-hot gas at low redshift: O vi
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低红移下温热气体的吸收特征:O vi
DOI:
10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.18123.x
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发表时间:
2011
影响因子:
4.8
通讯作者:
R.P.C.
中科院分区:
文献类型:
--
作者:
Tepper-García;Richter;Schaye;Dalla Vecchia;Theuns;Wiersma;R.P.C.
We investigate the origin and physical properties of O vi absorbers at low redshift (z= 0.25) using a subset of cosmological, hydrodynamical simulations from the OverWhelmingly Large Simulations (OWLS) project. Intervening O vi absorbers are believed to trace shock-heated gas in the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM) and may thus play a key role in the search for the missing baryons in the present-day Universe. When compared to observations, the predicted distributions of the different O vi line parameters (column density, Doppler parameter, rest equivalent width W r) from our simulations exhibit a lack of strong O vi absorbers, a discrepancy that has also been found by Oppenheimer & Davé. This suggests that physical processes on subgrid scales (eg turbulence) may strongly influence the observed properties of O vi systems. We find that the intervening O vi absorption arises mainly in highly metal enriched (10− 1≪ Z/Z⊙≲ 1) gas at typical overdensities of 1≪ ρ/< ρ>≲ 102. One-third of the O vi absorbers in our simulation are found to trace gas at temperatures T< 105 K, while the rest arises in gas at higher temperatures, most of them around T= 105.3±0.5 K. These temperatures are much higher than inferred by Oppenheimer & Davé, probably because that work did not take the suppression of metal-line cooling by the photoionizing background radiation into account. While the O vi resides in a similar region of (ρ, T)-space as much of the shock-heated baryonic matter, the vast majority of this gas has a lower metal content and does not give rise to detectable O vi absorption. As a consequence of the patchy metal distribution, O vi absorbers in our simulations trace only a very small fraction of the cosmic baryons (< 2 per cent) and the cosmic metals. Instead, these systems presumably trace previously shock-heated, metal-rich material from galactic winds that is now mixing with the ambient gas and cooling. The common approach of comparing O vi and H i column densities to estimate the physical conditions in intervening absorbers from QSO observations may be misleading, as most of the H i (and most of the gas mass) is not physically connected with the high-metallicity patches that give rise to the O vi absorption.
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DOI:
10.1086/324288
发表时间:
2002
期刊:
The Astrophysical Journal
影响因子:
--
作者:
B. Savage;K. Sembach;T. Tripp;P. Richter
通讯作者:
P. Richter
DOI:
10.1086/587486
发表时间:
2007-06
期刊:
The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series
影响因子:
--
作者:
T. Tripp;K. Sembach;D. Bowen;B. Savage;E. Jenkins;N. Lehner;P. Richter
通讯作者:
T. Tripp;K. Sembach;D. Bowen;B. Savage;E. Jenkins;N. Lehner;P. Richter
DOI:
--
发表时间:
2009
期刊:
影响因子:
--
作者:
B. Wakker;B. Savage
通讯作者:
B. Savage
DOI:
10.1086/382727
发表时间:
2003
期刊:
The Astrophysical Journal
影响因子:
--
作者:
S. Furlanetto;J. Schaye;V. Springel;L. Hernquist
通讯作者:
L. Hernquist
DOI:
--
发表时间:
2005
期刊:
影响因子:
--
作者:
C. Danforth;J. Shull;J. L. Rosenberg;J. L. Rosenberg;J. Stocke
通讯作者:
J. Stocke