Measuring the temperature and profiles of Ly α absorbers

Garzilli, Antonella; Theuns, Tom; Schaye, Joop

doi:10.1093/mnras/stz3585

Measuring the temperature and profiles of Ly α absorbers

Garzilli, Antonella; Theuns, Tom; Schaye, Joop

Authors

Antonella Garzilli

Professor Tom Theuns tom.theuns@durham.ac.uk
Professor

Joop Schaye

Abstract

The distribution of the absorption line broadening observed in the Lyα forest carries information about the temperature, T, and widths, λF, of the filaments in the intergalactic medium (IGM), and the background hydrogen photo-ionization rate, ΓHI. In this work, we present and test a new method for inferring T and λF and ΓHI from combining the distribution of the absorption line broadening and the median flux. The method accounts for any underlying degeneracies. We apply our method to mock spectra from the reference model of the EAGLE cosmological simulation, and we demonstrate that we are able to reconstruct the IGM properties.

Citation

Garzilli, A., Theuns, T., & Schaye, J. (2020). Measuring the temperature and profiles of Ly α absorbers. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, 492(2), 2193-2207. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz3585

Journal Article Type	Article
Acceptance Date	Dec 9, 2019
Online Publication Date	Dec 23, 2019
Publication Date	Feb 28, 2020
Deposit Date	Dec 12, 2019
Publicly Available Date	Jan 22, 2020
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Print ISSN	0035-8711
Electronic ISSN	1365-2966
Publisher	Royal Astronomical Society
Peer Reviewed	Peer Reviewed
Volume	492
Issue	2
Pages	2193-2207
DOI	https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz3585

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This article has been accepted for publication in the Monthly notices of the Royal Astronomical Society ©: 2019 The Author(s). Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.