We present an analysis of the angular momentum content of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) using TNG100, one of the flagship runs of the IllustrisTNG project. We focus on Milky Way-mass halos ($\sim 10^{12} \; M_{\odot}$) at $z=0$ but also analyze other masses and redshifts up to $z=5$. We find that the CGM angular momentum properties are strongly correlated with the stellar angular momentum of the corresponding galaxy: the CGM surrounding high-angular momentum galaxies has a systematically higher angular momentum and is better aligned to the rotational axis of the galaxy itself than the CGM surrounding low-angular momentum galaxies. Both the hot and cold phases of the CGM show this dichotomy, though it is stronger for colder gas. The CGM of high-angular momentum galaxies is characterized by a large wedge of cold gas with rotational velocities at least $\sim1/2$ of the halo's virial velocity, extending out to $\sim 1/2$ of the virial radius, and by biconical polar regions dominated by radial velocities suggestive of galactic fountains; both of these features are absent from the CGM of low-angular momentum galaxies. These conclusions are general to halo masses $\lesssim 10^{12} \; M_{\odot}$ and for $z \lesssim 2$, but they do not apply for more massive halos or at the highest redshift studied. By comparing simulations run with alterations to the fiducial feedback model, we identify the better alignment of the CGM to high-angular momentum galaxies as a feedback-independent effect and the galactic winds as a dominant influence on the CGM's angular momentum.
The circumgalactic medium (CGM), which harbors > 50% of all the baryons in a galaxy, is both the reservoir of gas for subsequent star formation and the depository of chemically processed gas, energy, and angular momentum from feedback. As such, the CGM obviously plays a critical role in galaxy evolution. We discuss the opportunity to image this component using recombination line emission, beginning with the early results coming from recent statistical detection of this emission to the final goal of realizing spectral-line images of the CGM in individual nearby galaxies. Such work will happen i…
Ninety per cent of baryons are located outside galaxies, either in the circumgalactic or intergalactic medium. Theory points to galactic winds as the primary source of the enriched and massive circumgalactic medium. Winds from compact starbursts have been observed to flow to distances somewhat greater than ten kiloparsecs, but the circumgalactic medium typically extends beyond a hundred kiloparsecs. Here we report optical integral field observations of the massive but compact galaxy SDSS J211824.06+001729.4. The oxygen [O II] lines at wavelengths of 3726 and 3729 angstroms reveal an ionized ou…
Single-phase photoionization equilibrium (PIE) models are often used to infer the underlying physical properties of galaxy halos probed in absorption with ions at different ionization potentials. To incorporate the effects of turbulence, we use the MAIHEM code to model an isotropic turbulent medium exposed to a redshift zero metagalactic UV background, while tracking the ionizations, recombinations, and species-by-species radiative cooling for a wide range of ions. By comparing observations and simulations over a wide range of turbulent velocities, densities, and metallicity with a Markov chai…
The large temperature difference between cold gas clouds around galaxies and the hot halos that they are moving through suggests that thermal conduction could play an important role in the circumgalactic medium. However, thermal conduction in the presence of a magnetic field is highly anisotropic, being strongly suppressed in the direction perpendicular to the magnetic field lines. This is commonly modelled by using a simple prescription that assumes that thermal conduction is isotropic at a certain efficiency $f<1$, but its precise value is largely unconstrained. We investigate the efficiency…
Galaxies are surrounded by extended atmospheres, which are often called the circumgalactic medium (CGM) and are the least understood part of galactic ecosystems. The CGM serves as a reservoir of both diffuse, metal-poor gas accreted from the intergalactic medium, and metal-rich gas that is either ejected from galaxies by energetic feedback or stripped from infalling satellites. As such, the CGM is empirically multi-phased and complex in dynamics. Significant progress has been made in the past decade or so in observing the cosmic-ray/B-field, as well as various phases of the CGM. But basic ques…
We describe a new approach to studying the intergalactic and circumgalactic medium in the local Universe: direct detection through narrow-band imaging of ultra-low surface brightness visible-wavelength line emission. We use the hydrodynamical cosmological simulation EAGLE to investigate the expected brightness of this emission at low redshift ($z$ $\lesssim$ 0.2). H$α$ emission in extended halos (analogous to the extended Ly$α$ halos/blobs detected around galaxies at high redshifts) has a surface brightness of $\gtrsim700$ photons cm$^{-2}$ sr$^{-1}$ s$^{-1}$ out to $\sim$100 kpc. Mock observa…
We find significantly different diagnostic emission line ratios for the circumgalactic gas associated with galaxies of stellar masses above and below $10^{10.4}$ M$_\odot$ using SDSS spectroscopy. Specifically, in a sample of 17,393 galaxies, intersected by 18,535 lines of sight at projected radii between 10 and 50 kpc, we stack measured fluxes for nebular strong emission lines, [O {\small III}] $λ$5007, H$α$ and [N {\small II}] $\lambda6583$, and find that the gas surrounding the lower mass galaxies exhibits similar line ratios to those of gas ionized by star formation and that surrounding th…
Using measurements of the [O III], H$α$ and [N II] emission line fluxes originating in the cool (T $\sim10^4$ K) gas that populates the halos of massive early-type galaxies with stellar mass greater than $10^{10.4}$ M$_\odot$, we explore the recent conjecture that active galactic nucleus (AGN) activity preferentially removes the circumgalactic medium (CGM) along the polar (minor-axis) direction. We find deficits in the mean emission line flux of [O III] and H$α$ (65 and 43%, respectively) along the polar vs. planar directions, although due to the large uncertainties in these difficult measurem…
The cycling of baryons in and out of galaxies is what ultimately drives galaxy formation and evolution. The circumgalactic medium (CGM) represents the interface between the interstellar medium and the cosmic web, hence its properties are directly shaped by the baryon cycle. Although traditionally the CGM is thought to consist of warm and hot gas, recent breakthroughs are presenting a new scenario according to which an important fraction of its mass may reside in the cold atomic and molecular phase. This would represent fuel that is readily available for star formation, with crucial implication…
Gas flows in the circumgalactic medium around simulated high-redshift galaxies
利用一个新的宇宙学变焦模拟样本,我们分析了红移范围z >= 3的模拟星系周围的环星系气体的性质。这些模拟旨在代表最近用MUSE仪器获得的莱曼α发射体的观测样本(晕质量约为10^10-10^11太阳质量)。我们发现,超新星反馈有显着的影响,流入和流出的环星系介质驱动外流,减少扩散流入率,并通过增加流入气体的中性部分。通过时间上叠加模拟输出,我们发现流入和流出阶段之间发生了显着的净质量交换:没有一个阶段是质量守恒的。特别是,我们发现,在中性流出的氢的质量随半径呈指数下降的气体从晕中心向外流动。这可能是由喷泉式循环过程和流出气体的逐渐光/碰撞电离的组合引起的。我们的模拟没有预测CGM中存在快速移动的中性流出。中性外流则以中等径向速度(约50 km ^-1)运动,大部分动能与切向运动而非径向运动有关。
Massive galaxies at high-z are known to co-evolve with their circumgalactic medium (CGM). If we want to truly understand the role of the CGM in the early evolution of galaxies and galaxy-clusters, we need to fully explore the multi-phase nature of the CGM. We present two novel science cases that utilize low-surface-brightness observations in the radio regime to better understand the CGM around distant galaxies. At the lowest temperatures, observations of widespread molecular gas are providing evidence for the cold baryon cycle that grows massive galaxies. At the highest temperatures, observati…
Observing the circumgalactic medium (CGM) in emission provides 3D maps of the spatial and kinematic extent of the gas that fuels galaxies and receives their feedback. We present mock emission-line maps of highly resolved CGM gas from the FOGGIE project (Figuring Out Gas & Galaxies in Enzo) and link these maps back to physical and spatial properties of the gas. By increasing the spatial resolution alone, the total luminosity of the line emission increases by an order of magnitude. This increase arises in the abundance of dense small-scale structure resolved when the CGM gas is simulated to < 10…
We study the properties of magnetic fields in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of $z<1$ galaxies by correlating Faraday rotation measures of $\sim 1,000$ high-redshift radio sources with the foreground galaxy number density estimated from the DESI Legacy Imaging Surveys. This method enables us to extract signals of rotation measures contributed by intervening gas around multiple galaxies. Our results show that there is no detectable correlation between the distribution of rotation measures and the number of foreground galaxies, contrary to several previous results. Utilizing the non-detection s…
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) of nearby star-forming galaxies shows clear indications of OVI absorption accompanied by little to no detectable NV absorption. This unusual spectral signature, accompanied by highly non-uniform absorption from lower ionization state species, indicates that the CGM must be viewed as a dynamic, multiphase medium, such as occurs in the presence of turbulence. Motivated by previous isotropic turbulent simulations, we carry out chemodynamical simulations of stratified media in a Navarro-Frenk-White (NFW) gravitational potential with a total mass of $10^{12}$ solar m…
We study the distribution and kinematics of the cool circumgalactic medium (CGM) of emission line galaxies (ELGs) traced by metal absorption lines. Using about 200,000 ELGs from SDSS-IV eBOSS and half a million background quasars from SDSS, we measure the median absorption strength of MgII and FeII lines in quasar spectra for impact parameters ranging from 10 kpc to 1 Mpc. For comparison we measure the same quantity around luminous red galaxies (LRGs). On scales greater than 100 kpc both ELGs and LRGs exhibit similar absorption profiles. However, metal absorption is 5-10 times stronger around …
We consider a model of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) in which feedback maintains a constant ratio of cooling time to freefall time throughout the halo, so that the entire CGM is marginally unstable to multiphase condensation. This 'precipitation model' is motivated by observations of multiphase gas in the cores of galaxy clusters and the halos of massive ellipticals. We derive from the model density and temperature profiles for the CGM around galaxies with masses similar to the Milky Way. After taking into consideration the geometrical position of our solar system in the Milky Way, we show t…
We measure differences in the emission line flux from the circumgalactic medium, CGM, of galaxies in different environments. Such differences could be a critical clue in explaining a range of galaxy properties that depend on environment. Using large samples of stacked archival spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, we find that the H$α$ + [N {\small II}] emission line flux from the CGM within 50 kpc of $\sim$ L$^*$ galaxies is lower both for galaxies that lie within a projected distance of $\sim$ 500 kpc from a massive ($M_*>10^{11} M_\odot$) galaxy and for galaxies in richer/denser enviro…
Over the past decade, Lyman-alpha and metal line absorption observations have established the ubiquity of a gas-rich circumgalactic medium (CGM) around star-forming galaxies at z~0.2 potentially tracing half of the missing baryonic mass within galaxy halos. Unfortunately, these observations only provide a statistical measure of the gas in the CGM and do not constrain the spatial distribution and kinematics of the gas. Furthermore, we have limited sensitivity to Lyman-alpha at z~0 with existing instruments. As such, we remain ignorant of how this gas may flow from the CGM onto the disks of gala…
As the signal-to-noise of Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) cross-correlation measurements of galaxies improves our ability to infer properties about the circumgalactic medium (CGM), we will transition from being limited by statistical uncertainties to systematic uncertainties. Using thermodynamic profiles of the CGM created from the IllustrisTNG (The Next Generation) simulations we investigate the importance of specific choices in modeling the galaxy sample. These choices include different sample selections in the simulation (stellar versus halo mass, color selections) and different fitting models (matc…
Deep observations have detected extended Ly$α$ emission nebulae surrounding tens of quasars at redshift 2 to 6. However, the metallicity of such extended haloes is still poorly understood. We perform a detailed analysis on a large sample of 80 quasars at $z\sim3$ based on MUSE-VLT data. We find clear evidence of extended emission of the UV nebular lines such as CIV or HeII for about 20$\%$ of the sample, while CIII] is only marginally detected in a few objects. By stacking the cubes we detect emission of CIV, HeII and CIII] out to a radius of about 45 kpc. CIV and HeII show a radial decline mu…
The eROSITA bubbles are detected via the instrument with the same name. The northern bubble shows noticeable asymmetric features, including distortion to the west and enhancement in the eastern edge, while the southern counterpart is significantly dimmer. Their origins are debated. Here, we performed hydrodynamic simulations showing that asymmetric eROSITA bubbles favor a dynamic, circumgalactic medium wind model, but disfavor other mechanisms such as a non-axisymmetric halo gas or a tilted nuclear outflow. The wind from the east by north direction in Galactic coordinates blows across the nort…
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) is closely linked to galaxy formation and evolution, but difficult to characterize observationally and typically poorly resolved in cosmological simulations. We use spherically-symmetric, idealized, high-resolution simulations of the CGM in $10^{12}M_\odot$ and $10^{11}M_\odot$ dark matter halos to characterize the gas pressure, turbulent and radial velocities, and degree of thermal and effective dynamic pressure support in the overall CGM as well as in its high- and low-temperature phases. We find that the $10^{12}M_\odot$ halo contains a CGM mostly formed of a…
Absorption-line measurements of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) display a highly non-uniform distribution of lower ionization state species accompanied by more widespread higher ionization state material. This suggests that the CGM is a dynamic, multiphase medium, such as arises in the presence of turbulence. To better understand this evolution, we perform hydrodynamic and magneto-hydrodynamic (MHD) simulations of the CGM surrounding Milky Way-like galaxies. In both cases, the CGM is initially in hydrostatic balance in a $10^{12}$ solar masses dark matter gravitational potential, and the simul…
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxies serves as a record of the influences of outflows and accretion that drive the evolution of galaxies. Feedback from star formation drives outflows that carry mass and metals away from galaxies to the CGM, while infall from the intergalactic medium (IGM) is thought to bring in fresh gas to fuel star formation. Such exchanges of matter between IGM-CGM-galaxies have proven critical to producing galaxy scaling relations in cosmological simulations that match observations. However, the nature of these processes, of the physics that drives outflows and accr…
Large reservoirs of cold (~ 10^4 K) gas exist out to and beyond the virial radius in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of all types of galaxies. Photoionization modeling suggests that cold CGM gas has significantly lower densities than expected by theoretical predictions based on thermal pressure equilibrium with hot CGM gas. In this work, we investigate the impact of cosmic ray physics on the formation of cold gas via thermal instability. We use idealized three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic simulations to follow the evolution of thermally unstable gas in a gravitationally stratified medium. W…
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) of nearby star-forming galaxies show clear indications of \ion{O}{6} absorption accompanied by little to no \ion{N}{5} absorption. This unusual spectral signature, accompanied by absorption from lower ionization state species whose columns vary by orders of magnitude along \st{difference} \textbf{different} sightlines, indicates that the CGM must be viewed as a dynamic, multiphase medium, such as occurs in the presence of turbulence. To explore this possibility, we carry out a series of chemodynamical simulations of a isotropic turbulent media, using the MAIHEM …
The circumgalactic medium (CGM), i.e. the gaseous haloes around galaxies, is both the reservoir of gas that fuels galaxy growth and the repository of gas expelled by galactic winds. Most cosmological, hydrodynamical simulations focus their computational effort on the galaxies themselves and treat the CGM more coarsely, which means small-scale structure cannot be resolved. We get around this issue by running zoom-in simulations of a Milky Way-mass galaxy with standard mass refinement and additional uniform spatial refinement within the virial radius. This results in a detailed view of its gaseo…
In order to study the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxies we develop an automated pipeline to estimate the optical continuum of quasars and detect intervening metal absorption line systems with a matched kernel convolution technique and adaptive S/N criteria. We process $\sim$ one million quasars in the latest Data Release 16 (DR16) of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) and compile a large sample of $\sim$ 160,000 MgII absorbers, together with $\sim$ 70,000 FeII systems, in the redshift range $0.35<z_{abs}<2.3$. Combining these with the SDSS DR16 spectroscopy of $\sim1.1$ million luminous…
We examine the effects of SMBH feedback on the CGM using a cosmological hydrodynamic simulation \citep[{\sc Romulus25};][]{Tremmel2017} and a set of four zoom-in `genetically modified' Milky Way-mass galaxies sampling different evolutionary paths. By tracing the distribution of metals in the circumgalactic medium (CGM), we show that \ion{O}{6} is a sensitive indicator of supermassive black hole (SMBH) feedback. First, we calculate the column densities of \ion{O}{6} in simulated Milky Way-mass galaxies and compare them with observations from the COS-Halos Survey. Our simulations show column den…
We use hydrodynamical simulations of two Milky Way-mass galaxies to demonstrate the impact of cosmic-ray pressure on the kinematics of cool and warm circumgalactic gas. Consistent with previous studies, we find that cosmic-ray pressure can dominate over thermal pressure in the inner 50 kpc of the circumgalactic medium (CGM), creating an overall cooler CGM than that of similar galaxy simulations run without cosmic rays. We generate synthetic sightlines of the simulated galaxies' CGM and use Voigt profile fitting methods to extract ion column densities, Doppler-b parameters, and velocity centroi…
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) is one of the frontiers of galaxy formation and intimately connected to the galaxy via accretion of gas on to the galaxy and gaseous outflows from the galaxy. Here we analyse the magnetic field in the CGM of the Milky Way-like galaxies simulated as part of the \textsc{Auriga} project that constitutes a set of high resolution cosmological magnetohydrodynamical zoom simulations. We show that before $z=1$ the CGM becomes magnetised via galactic outflows that transport magnetised gas from the disk into the halo. At this time the magnetisation of the CGM closely foll…
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) is the location where the interplay between large-scale outflows and accretion onto galaxies occurs. Metals in different ionization states flowing between the circumgalactic and intergalactic mediums are affected by large galactic outflows and low-ionization state inflowing gas. Observational studies on their spatial distribution and their relation with galaxy properties may provide important constraints on models of galaxy formation and evolution. To provide new insights into the spatial distribution of the circumgalactic of star-forming galaxies, we select a s…
In major galaxy mergers, the orbits of stars are violently perturbed, and gas is torqued to the centre, diluting the gas metallicity and igniting a starburst. In this paper, we study the gas dynamics in and around merging galaxies using a series of cosmological magneto-hydrodynamical (MHD) zoom-in simulations. We find that the gas bridge connecting the merging galaxies pre-coalescence is dominated by turbulent pressure, with turbulent Mach numbers peaking at values of 1.6-3.3. This implies that bridges are dominated by supersonic turbulence, and are thus ideal candidates for studying the impac…
The COS-Halos Survey: Origins of the Highly Ionized Circumgalactic Medium of Star-Forming Galaxies
扩散晕气体对星系重子预算的总贡献很大程度上取决于它的主要电离态。在本文中,我们解决的物理条件,在高度电离环星系介质(CGM)跟踪的OVI吸收线观测到的COS-Halos光谱。我们分析了所观察到的离子柱密度,吸收线宽度和相对速度,以及NV/OVI的比率为39拟合Voigt配置文件组件的OVI。我们比较这些数量与广泛的电离模型给出的预测。光电离模型,只包括河外紫外背景辐射被排除;保守地说,NV/OVI的上限和N $_{\rm OVI}$的测量意味着非物理的大路径长度> 100 kpc。此外,非常广泛的OVI吸收(b > 40 km s $^{-1}$)是一个定义的特征CGM的恒星形成的L* 星系。我们强调了两个可能的起源为大部分观察到的OVI:(1)高度结构化的气体云主要由当地的高能量源或(2)气体辐射冷却大尺度背后的超音速风。大约20%的环银河OVI不与$\pm$ 50 km s $^{-1}$内的任何低电离态气体对齐,并且仅在M $_{\rm halo}$ < 10 $^{12}$ M $_{\odot}$的晕中发现。我们认为,这种类型的不匹配的OVI吸收跟踪热电晕本身的特征温度为10 $^{5.5}$ K。我们讨论了这些非常不同的物理起源的动力学状态,气体冷却速率,和总重子含量的L* 气体晕的影响。
We explore the multiphase structure of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) probed by synthetic spectra through a cosmological zoom-in galaxy formation simulation. We employ a Bayesian method for modelling a combination of absorption lines to derive physical properties of absorbers with a formal treatment of detections, including saturated systems, and non-detections in a uniform manner. We find that in the lines of sight passing through localized density structures, absorption lines of low, intermediate and high ions are present in the spectrum and overlap in velocity space. Low, intermediate and …
The majority of galactic baryons reside outside of the galactic disk in the diffuse gas known as the circumgalactic medium (CGM). While state-of-the art simulations excel at reproducing galactic disk properties, many struggle to drive strong galactic winds or to match the observed ionization structure of the CGM using only thermal supernova feedback. To remedy this, recent studies have invoked non-thermal cosmic ray (CR) stellar feedback prescriptions. However, numerical schemes of CR transport are still poorly constrained. We explore how the choice of CR transport affects the multiphase struc…
Metallicity estimates of circumgalactic gas based on absorption line measurements typically require photoionization modeling to account for unseen ionization states. We explore the impact of uncertainties in the extreme ultraviolet background (EUVB) radiation on such metallicity determinations for the z < 1 circumgalactic medium (CGM). In particular, we study how uncertainties in the power-law slope of the EUV radiation, $\mathrm{α_{EUVB}}$, from active galactic nuclei affect metallicity estimates in a sample of 34 absorbers with HI column densities between 15.25 < log ($\mathrm{N_{HI}}$ / $\m…