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arXiv 2104.01182astro-ph.GA
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环银河系介质密度和金属丰度的推断有多可靠?

How Robust are the Inferred Density and Metallicity of the Circumgalactic Medium?

Anshuman Acharya, Vikram Khaire

摘要:

环星系介质(CGM)的基本性质,如密度和金属丰度的定量估计,取决于入射紫外背景辐射的光谱。已知UV背景的模型具有大的变化,主要是因为它们是使用约束不良的参数合成的,这在CGM的推断性质中引入了不确定性。在这里,我们量化这种不确定性,使用大量的新的UV背景模型与物理动机的玩具模型的金属富集CGM。我们发现,低密度($10^{-5}$ cm $^{-3}$)气体的推断密度和金属丰度的不确定性系数分别为6.3和3.2,而高密度($10^{-3}$ cm $^{-3}$)气体的不确定性系数分别为4和1.6。UV背景模型的形状变化完全是金属丰度变化的原因,而密度变化则是由UV背景的归一化和形状引起的。此外,我们发现较硬(较软)的紫外线背景意味着较高(较低)的密度和金属度。我们还研究了温暖的热气体在$T= 10^{5.5}$ K,并发现,金属丰度是稳健的估计,但推断的密度是不确定的,由3到5.4的因素,从低到高密度的气体。密度和金属丰度的这种大的不确定性可能会严重限制CGM的研究,并需要更好的观测约束的输入参数用于合成紫外背景。

英文摘要:

Quantitative estimates of the basic properties of the circumgalactic medium(CGM), such as its density and metallicity, depend on the spectrum of incident UV background radiation. Models of UV background are known to have large variations, mainly because they are synthesized using poorly constrained parameters, which introduce uncertainty in the inferred properties of the CGM. Here, we quantify this uncertainty using a large set of new UV background models with physically motivated toy models of metal-enriched CGM. We find that, the inferred density and metallicity of low-density ($10^{-5}$ cm$^{-3}$) gas is uncertain by factors of 6.3 and 3.2, whereas high density ($10^{-3}$ cm$^{-3}$) gas by factors of 4 and 1.6, respectively. The variation in the shape of the UV background models is entirely responsible for such a variation in the metallicity while variation in the density arises from both normalization and shape of the UV background. Moreover, we find a harder (softer) UV background infers higher (lower) density and metallicity. We also study warm-hot gas at $T= 10^{5.5}$ K and find that metallicity is robustly estimated but the inferred density is uncertain by a factor of 3 to 5.4 for low to high-density gas. Such large uncertainties in density and metallicity may severely limit the studies of the CGM and demand better observational constraints on the input parameters used in synthesizing UV background.

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