Cosmological-Scale Lyman-alpha Forest Absorption Around Galaxies and AGN Probed with the HETDEX and SDSS Spectroscopic Data

TL;DR

This study uses large-scale 3D hydrogen maps from quasar absorption data to analyze the distribution of neutral hydrogen around galaxies and AGN at high redshift, revealing differences in halo mass and ionization effects.

Contribution

It provides the first cosmological-scale 3D HI tomographic maps at z=2-3 and investigates the large-scale HI profiles around galaxies and AGN using extensive spectroscopic data.

Findings

Galaxies have lower HI radial profile peaks than AGN, indicating less massive halos.

AGN show narrower LoS HI profiles than transverse ones, consistent with the Kaiser effect.

Weak HI absorption outskirts extend beyond structures, influenced by gas falling toward sources.

Abstract

We present cosmological-scale 3-dimensional (3D) neutral hydrogen ({\sc Hi}) tomographic maps at $z=2-3$ over a total of 837 deg$^2$ in two blank fields that are developed with Ly$\alpha$ forest absorptions of 14,736 background Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) quasars at $z$=2.08-3.67. Using the tomographic maps, we investigate the large-scale ($\gtrsim 10$ $h^{-1}$cMpc) average {\sc Hi} radial profiles and two-direction profiles of the line-of-sight (LoS) and transverse (Trans) directions around galaxies and AGN at $z=2-3$ identified by the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy eXperiment (HETDEX) and SDSS surveys, respectively. The peak of the {\sc Hi} radial profile around galaxies is lower than the one around AGN, suggesting that the dark-matter halos of galaxies are less massive on average than those of AGN. The LoS profile of AGN is narrower than the Trans profile, indicating the Kaiser effect. There exist weak absorption outskirts at $\gtrsim 30$ $h^{-1}$cMpc beyond {\sc Hi} structures of galaxies and AGN found in the LoS profiles that can be explained by the {\sc Hi} gas at $\gtrsim 30$ $h^{-1}$cMpc falls toward the source positions. Our findings indicate that the {\sc Hi} radial profile of AGN has transitions from proximity zones ($\lesssim$ a few $h^{-1}$cMpc) to the {\sc Hi} structures ($\sim 1-30$ $h^{-1}$cMpc) and the weak absorption outskirts ($\gtrsim 30$ $h^{-1}$cMpc). Although there is no significant dependence of AGN types (type-1 vs. type-2) on the {\sc Hi} profiles, the peaks of the radial profiles anti-correlate with AGN luminosities, suggesting that AGN's ionization effects are stronger than the gas mass differences.