2015/12/16 by M. Landoni, R. Falomo, A. Treves +2 · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.GA #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1093/mnras/stv2964
Very minor revision . Accepted for publication in MNRAS
arxiv created 2015/12/16 · arxiv updated 2016/01/27
We investigate the properties of the circumgalactic gas in the halo of quasar host galaxies from CIV absorption line systems. Optical spectroscopy of closely aligned pairs of quasars (projected distance ≤ 200 kpc) obtained at the Gran Telescopio Canarias is used to investigate the distribution of the absorbing gas for a sample of 18 quasars at z ∼ 2. We found that the detected absorption systems of EW ≥ 0.3Ang associated with the foreground QSO are revealed up to 200 kpc from the center of the host galaxy. The structure of the absorbing gas is rather patchy with a covering fraction of the gas that quickly decreases beyond 100 kpc. These results are in qualitative agreement with those found for the lower ionisation metal Mg II 2800 Ang.