2003/09/30 by Steven Furlanetto, Steven R. Furlanetto, Joop Schaye +2 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Stellar, planetary, and galactic studies #astro-ph
paper · pdf · doi:10.1086/382727
published as Astrophys.J.606:221-236,2004 · replaced by version to appear in ApJ (conclusions unchanged, one new figure), 16 pages (emulateapj), 11 figures, version with higher resolution figures available at http://www.tapir.caltech.edu/~sfurlane/metals/coverpage.html
arxiv created 2004/02/18 · openalex publication_date 2004/04/20 · arxiv updated 2009/12/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/01
We use a high-resolution cosmological simulation that includes hydrodynamics, multiphase star formation, and galactic winds to predict the distribution of metal line emission at z ~ 0 from the intergalactic medium (IGM). We focus on two ultraviolet doublet transitions, O VI λλ1032, 1038 and C IV λλ1548, 1551. Emission from filaments with moderate overdensities is orders of magnitude smaller than the background, but isolated emission from enriched dense regions with T ~ 10 5 -10 5.5 K and characteristic size ~50-100 kpc can be detected above the background. We show that the emission from these regions is substantially greater when we use the metallicities predicted by the simulation (which includes enrichment through galactic winds) than when we assume a uniform IGM metallicity. Luminous regions correspond to volumes that have recently been influenced by galactic winds. We also show that the line emission is clustered on scales ~1 h -1 Mpc. We argue that although these transitions are not effective tracers of the warm-hot intergalactic medium, they do provide a route to study the chemical enrichment of the IGM and the physics of galactic winds.