Possible evolution of the circum-galactic medium around QSOs with QSO age and cosmic time revealed by Ly$\alpha$ halos

TL;DR

This study investigates the evolution of Ly$ extalpha$ halos around QSOs, revealing potential short-term changes with QSO age and long-term growth with cosmic time, linked to dark matter halo development.

Contribution

It presents new observations of a luminous high-redshift Ly$ extalpha$ halo and proposes a dual evolution scenario tied to QSO age and cosmic structure growth.

Findings

Ly$ extalpha$ halo size anti-correlates with IR luminosity.

A positive correlation exists between IR luminosity and black hole mass.

Ly$ extalpha$ halos grow in size and brightness over cosmic time, paralleling dark matter halo evolution.

Abstract

We first present new Subaru narrow-band observations of the Ly$\alpha$ halo around the quasi-stellar object (QSO) CFHQ J232908$-$030158 at $z=6.42$, which appears the most luminous and extended halo at $z>5$ ($L_{Ly\alpha}=9.8\times10^{43}$ erg s$^{-1}$ within $37$ pkpc diameter). Then, combining these measurements with available data in the literature, we find two different evolutions of QSOs' Ly$\alpha$ halos. First is a possible short-term evolution with QSO age seen in four $z>6$ QSOs. We find the anti-correlation between the Ly$\alpha$ halo scales with QSOs' IR luminosity, with J2329-0301's halo being the brightest and largest. It indicates that ionizing photons escape more easily out to circum-galactic regions when host galaxies are less dusty. We also find a positive correlation between IR luminosity and black hole mass ($M_\text{BH}$). Given $M_\text{BH}$ as an indicator of QSO age, we propose a hypothesis that a large Ly$\alpha$ halo mainly exists around QSOs in the young phase of their activity due to a small amount of dust. The second is an evolution with cosmic time seen over $z\sim2-5$. We find the increase of surface brightness toward lower-redshift with a similar growth rate to that of dark matter halos (DHs) which evolve to $M_\text{DH}=10^{12}-10^{13}$ M$_\odot$ at $z=2$. The extent of Ly$\alpha$ halos is also found to increase at a rate scaling with the virial radius of growing DHs, $r_\text{vir} \propto M_\text{DH}^{1/3}$($1+z$)$^{-1}$. These increases are consistent with a scenario that the CGM around QSOs evolves in mass and size keeping pace with hosting DHs.