Hydrogen and Metal Line Absorption Around Low-Redshift Galaxies in Cosmological Hydrodynamic Simulations

TL;DR

This study uses cosmological hydrodynamic simulations to analyze the physical conditions and absorption features of the circum-galactic medium around low-redshift galaxies, revealing how different ions trace various gas phases and distributions.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the ion-specific absorption profiles and the impact of galactic outflows on the CGM's physical state and metal distribution.

Findings

Absorption excess extends beyond 1 Mpc, linked to large-scale structure.

Low ions are denser and closer to galaxies, high ions are more diffuse.

Collisionally-ionised high ions are prominent in hot, inner CGM regions.

Abstract

We study the physical conditions of the circum-galactic medium (CGM) around z=0.25 galaxies as traced by HI and metal line absorption, using cosmological hydrodynamic simulations that include galactic outflows. Using lines of sight targeted at impact parameters from 10 kpc to 1 Mpc around galaxies with halo masses from 10^11-10^13 M_solar, we study the physical conditions and their variation with impact parameter b and line-of-sight velocity delta v in the CGM as traced by HI, MgII, SiIV, CIV, OVI, and NeVIII absorbers. All ions show a strong excess of absorption near galaxies compared to random lines of sight. The excess continues beyond 1 Mpc, reflecting the correlation of metal absorption with large-scale structure. Absorption is particularly enhanced within about v<300 km/sec and roughly 300 kpc of galaxies (with distances somewhat larger for the highest ion), approximately delineating the CGM; this range contains the majority of global metal absorption. Low ions like MgII and SiIV predominantly arise in denser gas closer to galaxies and drop more rapidly with b, while high ions OVI and NeVIII trace more diffusely distributed gas with a comparatively flat radial profile; CIV is intermediate. All ions predominantly trace T~10^4-4.5 K photo-ionised gas at all b, but when hot CGM gas is present (mostly in larger halos), we see strong collisionally-ionised OVI and NeVIII at b <= 100 kpc. Larger halo masses generally produce more absorption, though overall the trends are not as strong as that with impact parameter. These findings arise using our favoured outflow scalings as expected for momentum-driven winds; with no winds, the CGM gas remains mostly unenriched, while our outflow model with a constant velocity and mass loading factor produce hotter, more widely dispersed metals.