A Close Relationship between Lyman Alpha and Mg II in Green Pea Galaxies

TL;DR

This study reveals a strong correlation between Mg II and Lyman Alpha escape fractions in Green Pea galaxies, suggesting Mg II can serve as a diagnostic for feedback and outflows in low-density gas environments, especially during reionization.

Contribution

The paper demonstrates a close relationship between Mg II and Lyman Alpha escape fractions, providing a new method to infer Lyman Alpha properties from Mg II observations in low-redshift galaxies.

Findings

Mg II emission is strong with little absorption in the sample.

Mg II escape fraction correlates tightly with Lyman Alpha escape fraction.

Mg II line profiles vary with escape fraction, indicating resonant scattering effects.

Abstract

The Mg II 2796,2803 doublet is often used to measure interstellar medium absorption in galaxies, thereby serving as a diagnostic for feedback and outflows. However, the interpretation of Mg II remains confusing, due to resonant trapping and re-emission of the photons, analogous to Lyman Alpha. Therefore, in this paper, we present new MMT Blue Channel Spectrograph observations of Mg II for a sample of 10 Green Pea galaxies at z~0.2-0.3, where Lyman Alpha was previously observed with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on Hubble Space Telescope. With strong, (mostly) double-peaked Lyman Alpha profiles, these galaxies allow us to observe Mg II in the limit of low H I column density. We find strong Mg II emission and little-to-no absorption. We use photoionization models to show that nebular Mg II from H II regions is non-negligible, and the ratios of Mg II/[OIII] 5007 vs. [OIII] 5007/[OII] 3727 form a tight sequence. Using this relation, we predict intrinsic Mg II flux, and show that Mg II escape fractions range from 0 to 0.9. We find that the Mg II escape fraction correlates tightly with the Lyman Alpha escape fraction, and the Mg II line profiles show evidence for broader and more redshifted emission when the escape fractions are low. These trends are expected if the escape fractions and velocity profiles of Lyman Alpha and Mg II are shaped by resonant scattering in the same low column density gas. As a consequence of a close relation with Lyman Alpha, Mg II may serve as a useful diagnostic in the epoch of reionization, where Lyman Alpha and Lyman continuum photons are not easily observed.