Metal-line emission from the warm-hot intergalactic medium: II. Ultraviolet

TL;DR

This study predicts UV emission lines from the warm-hot intergalactic medium using simulations, identifying key tracers of different temperature regimes and assessing their observability with future UV telescopes.

Contribution

It provides detailed predictions for UV emission line surface brightness from the WHIM, exploring the effects of various physical processes and identifying the most promising observational tracers.

Findings

C III is the strongest UV emission line but traces cooler gas.

O VI and Ne VIII trace warmer, diffuse gas related to large-scale structure.

Bright emission lines originate from dense, metal-rich gas.

Abstract

Approximately half the baryons in the local Universe are thought to reside in the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM). Emission lines from metals in the UV band are excellent tracers of the cooler fraction of this gas. We present predictions for the surface brightness of a sample of UV lines that could potentially be observed by the next generation of UV telescopes at z<1. We use a subset of simulations from the OWLS project to create emission maps and to investigate the effect of varying the physical prescriptions for star formation, supernova and AGN feedback, chemodynamics and radiative cooling. Most models produce results in agreement within a factor of a few, indicating that the predictions are robust. Of the lines we consider, C III is the strongest line, but it typically traces gas colder than 10^5 K. The same is true for Si IV. The second strongest line, C IV, traces circum-galactic gas with T~10^5 K. O VI and Ne VIII probe the warmer (T~10^5.5 K and T~10^6 K, respectively) and more diffuse gas that may be a better tracer of the large scale structure. N V emission is intermediate between C IV and O VI. The intensity of all emission lines increases strongly with gas density and metallicity, and for the bright emission it is tightly correlated with the temperature for which the line emissivity is highest. In particular, the C III, C IV, Si IV and O VI emission that is sufficiently bright to be potentially detectable in the near future (>10^3 photon/s/cm^2/sr), comes from relatively dense (rho>10^2 rho_mean) and metal rich (Z>0.1 Z_sun) gas. As such, emission lines are highly biased tracers of the missing baryons and are not an optimal tool to close the baryon budget. However, they do provide a powerful means to detect the gas cooling onto or flowing out of galaxies and groups. (Abridged)