Metal-enriched halo gas across galaxy overdensities over the last 10 billion years

TL;DR

This study investigates how metal-enriched halo gas around galaxies varies with environment and galaxy properties over the last 10 billion years, revealing environment significantly influences metal distribution.

Contribution

It provides the first comprehensive analysis of the dependence of MgII and CIV absorption on galaxy environment and properties across a large redshift range.

Findings

Higher overdensity regions have 2-3 times more MgII absorption.

CIV gas is more extended and less dependent on environment than MgII.

Incidence of both MgII and CIV increases with redshift, especially beyond z>1.

Abstract

We present a study of metal-enriched halo gas traced by MgII and CIV absorption at z<2 in the MUSE Analysis of Gas around Galaxies survey and the Quasar Sightline and Galaxy Evolution survey. Using these large and complete galaxy surveys in quasar fields, we study the dependence of the metal distribution on galaxy properties and overdensities, out to physical projected separations of 750 kpc. We find that the cool, low-ionization gas is significantly affected by the environment across the full redshift range probed, with ~2-3 times more prevalent and stronger MgII absorption in higher overdensity group environments and in regions with greater overall stellar mass and star formation rates. Complementary to these results, we have further investigated the more highly ionized gas as traced by CIV absorption, and found that it is likely to be more extended than the MgII gas, with ~2 times higher covering fraction at a given distance. We find that the strength and covering fraction of CIV absorption show less significant dependence on galaxy properties and environment than the MgII absorption, but more massive and star-forming galaxies nevertheless also show ~2 times higher incidence of CIV absorption. The incidence of MgII and CIV absorption within the virial radius shows a tentative increase with redshift, being higher by a factor of ~1.5 and ~4, respectively, at z>1. It is clear from our results that environmental processes have a significant impact on the distribution of metals around galaxies and need to be fully accounted for when analyzing correlations between gaseous haloes and galaxy properties.