Confirmation of Intervening Filaments of Galaxies at the Redshifts of $Chandra$ WHIM Absorption Features

TL;DR

This study confirms the existence of large-scale galaxy filaments at specific redshifts aligned with WHIM absorption features, using photometric data to map cosmic structures along a blazar's sight-line.

Contribution

It provides the first a posteriori confirmation of intervening galaxy filaments associated with WHIM absorption features at particular redshifts.

Findings

Detected filaments at z=0.23 and z=0.31 aligning with absorption features.

No corresponding structures found for the z=0.133 X-ray absorption feature.

Demonstrates the effectiveness of photometric catalogs in mapping cosmic web structures.

Abstract

We report the $a~posteriori$ confirmation of two large-scale filaments along the sight-line of the blazar 1ES~1553+113, which correspond to Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM) absorption features in the X-ray and far ultraviolet. We use the WISE-SuperCOSMOS photometric catalog to map the cosmic-web in the direction of the blazar, and find significant filaments at redshifts of $z=0.23\pm0.02$ and $z=0.31\pm0.02$, which roughly align with the absorption redshifts. A third X-ray absorption feature at $z_X=0.133$ did not have any corresponding structures in the photometric catalog.