On the connection between galaxy orientation and halo absorption properties

TL;DR

This study investigates the relationship between galaxy orientation and metal-line absorption in the circumgalactic medium, finding no significant azimuthal dependence within 50 kpc, suggesting a mostly isotropic distribution of absorbers.

Contribution

It provides a systematic analysis of azimuthal absorption dependence using high-quality imaging and a uniform galaxy sample, improving understanding of CGM geometry.

Findings

No significant correlation between absorption strength and azimuthal angle.

CaII absorption shows low covering fraction with no azimuthal dependence.

Absorber distribution appears consistent with randomness within 50 kpc.

Abstract

We present a systematic investigation of the azimuthal dependence of metal-line absorption in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) using a uniformly selected sample of 87 isolated galaxies at z < 0.4 from the Magellan MagE MgII (M3) halo survey. High-quality archival imaging enables quantitative morphological measurements -- including disk inclination and position angle -- for every galaxy, providing a robust framework for assessing how absorber strength depends on the geometric alignment between galaxies and the QSO sightlines. All galaxies have associated constraints on MgII lambda 2796 absorption, and a subset of 56 galaxies also have measurements of CaII lambda 3934. We compare rest-frame MgII and CaII equivalent widths with both projected distance and deprojected galactocentric distance. Across the full sample, we find no statistically significant correlation between absorption strength and azimuthal angle. Restricting to the 71 galaxies with well-determined disk orientations reveals a mild excess of strong MgII absorbers near the projected major axis, but a Kendall's tau test confirms that this trend is not statistically significant. CaII absorption, which exhibits a low covering fraction of kappa_CaII = 0.18^{+0.06}_{-0.04} within 50 kpc for W_r(3934) > 0.1 Ang, shows no measurable azimuthal dependence. To assess potential biases, we quantify the effects of projection, disk inclination, and variations in imaging quality. After accounting for these systematics, the spatial distribution of low-redshift MgII and CaII absorbers is consistent with arising from a randomly distributed population, with no compelling evidence for azimuthal anisotropy at d <~ 50 kpc. A larger sample with robust constraints on the disk orientation will be required to uncover or rule out subtle anisotropic trends.