Gas Accretion and Giant Lyman-alpha Nebulae

TL;DR

This review discusses the properties, origins, and kinematics of giant Lyman-alpha nebulae around high-redshift galaxies and AGN, highlighting current understanding and future observational prospects for gas accretion evidence.

Contribution

It synthesizes recent observational findings on Lyman-alpha nebulae, emphasizing their physical properties, kinematics, and the potential for detecting cosmological gas accretion.

Findings

Recombination radiation likely explains most Lyman-alpha luminosities.

Radio-loud AGN nebulae show outflows within 30-50 kpc.

Radio-quiet nebulae often exhibit quiescent or rotating kinematics.

Abstract

Several decades of observations and discoveries have shown that high-redshift AGN and massive galaxies are often surrounded by giant Lyman-alpha nebulae extending in some cases up to 500 kpc in size. In this review, I discuss the properties of the such nebulae discovered at z>2 and their connection with gas flows in and around the galaxies and their halos. In particular, I show how current observations are used to constrain the physical properties and origin of the emitting gas in terms of the Lyman-alpha photon production processes and kinematical signatures. These studies suggest that recombination radiation is the most viable scenario to explain the observed Lyman-alpha luminosities and Surface Brightness for the large majority of the nebulae and imply that a significant amount of dense, ionized and cold clumps should be present within and around the halos of massive galaxies. Spectroscopic studies suggest that, among the giant Lyman-alpha nebulae, the one associated with radio-loud AGN should have kinematics dominated by strong, ionized outflows within at least the inner 30-50 kpc. Radio-quiet nebulae instead present more quiescent kinematics compatible with stationary situation and, in some cases, suggestive of rotating structures. However, definitive evidences for accretion onto galaxies of the gas associated with the giant Lyman-alpha emission are not unambiguously detected yet. Deep surveys currently ongoing using other bright, non-resonant lines such as Hydrogen H-alpha and HeII1640 will be crucial to search for clearer signatures of cosmological gas accretion onto galaxies and AGN.