MUSE Analysis of Gas around Galaxies (MAGG) -- VI. The cool and enriched gas environment of z$\gtrsim$3 Ly$\alpha$ emitters

TL;DR

This study investigates the multiphase gas environment around high-redshift Lyα emitters, revealing correlations between gas properties and galaxy environments, and suggesting LAEs reside along enriched gas filaments.

Contribution

It provides a comprehensive analysis of cool, enriched gas phases around z≈3-4 LAEs using MgII, CIV, and HI absorbers, highlighting environmental effects and redshift evolution.

Findings

MgII and CIV strengths correlate with galaxy number density.

Metal absorbers are 3-4 times more common around galaxy groups.

The MgII covering factor remains constant from z≈3-4 to z<2.

Abstract

We present a novel dataset that extends our view of the cosmic gas around z$\approx$3-4 Ly$\alpha$ emitting galaxies (LAEs) in the Muse Analysis of Gas around Galaxies (MAGG) survey by tracing a cool and enriched gas phase through 47 MgII absorbers identified in newly-obtained VLT/XSHOOTER near-infrared quasar spectra. Jointly with the more ionized gas traced by CIV systems and the neutral HI from previous work, we find that LAEs are distributed inside cosmic structures that contain multiphase gas in composition and temperature. All gas phases are a strong function of the large-scale galaxy environment: the MgII and the CIV strength and kinematics positively correlate with the number of associated galaxies, and it is $\approx$3-4 times more likely to detect metal absorbers around group than isolated LAEs. Exploring the redshift evolution, the covering factor of MgII around group and isolated LAEs remains approximately constant from z$\approx$3-4 to z<2, but the one of CIV around group galaxies drops by z<2. Adding the cool enriched gas traced by the MgII absorbers to the results we obtained for the HI and CIV gas, we put forward a picture in which LAEs lie along gas filaments that contain high column-density HI systems and are enriched by strong CIV and MgII absorbers. While the MgII gas appears to be more centrally concentrated near LAEs, weaker CIV systems trace instead a more diffuse gas phase extended up to larger distances around the galaxies.