The MUSE Ultra Deep Field (MUDF) VIII. The cool gas distribution surrounding galaxies at redshifts z ~ 0.5-2

TL;DR

This study uses deep MUSE data to analyze the distribution and properties of cool gas around galaxies at redshifts 0.5 to 2, revealing how outflows and gas retention vary with galaxy mass and star formation.

Contribution

It provides new insights into the cool circumgalactic medium by combining down-the-barrel and transverse absorption measurements with radiative transfer models.

Findings

Outflows are stronger in lower-mass galaxies with higher velocities.

MgII absorption decreases with impact parameter, indicating a shallow gas profile.

Extrapolated halo models overestimate observed MgII absorption, highlighting geometric effects.

Abstract

We use deep MUSE data from the MUDF survey to investigate the cool gas around galaxies at redshifts 0.5 < z < 2. We constructed two samples: one sample for a down-the-barrel analysis, probing outflows via MgII absorption against galaxy continua, and the other sample for projected galaxy pairs to examine the gas around the foreground galaxies in the transverse direction. From down-the-barrel stacked spectra, we detected blueshifted MgII absorption, indicative of outflows, in which the absorption strength increases with stellar mass and star formation rate. Lower-mass galaxies exhibit weaker absorption, but higher outflow velocities, whereas higher-mass systems retain more cool gas with slower outflows. In the transverse direction, the absorption of MgII decreases with the impact parameter, following a shallow profile. Comparing observations with radiative transfer models, we found that extrapolating an expanding halo model constrained with down-the-barrel measurements to halo scales overestimates the observed equivalent widths, likely due to the outflow geometry and the absence of the interstellar medium in the model. Our results highlight that mass, outflow geometry, and gas retention shape the cool circumgalactic medium, and that the combination of absorption and emission diagnostics provides powerful constraints on the properties of the cold halo gas.