- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/859/53
- Title:
- Ly{alpha} candidates from a MUSE survey of 6 AGNs
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/859/53
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Recent theoretical models suggest that the early phase of galaxy formation could involve an epoch when galaxies are gas rich but inefficient at forming stars: a "dark galaxy" phase. Here, we report the results of our Multi-Unit Spectroscopic Explorer (MUSE) survey for dark galaxies fluorescently illuminated by quasars at z>3. Compared to previous studies which are based on deep narrowband (NB) imaging, our integral field survey provides a nearly uniform sensitivity coverage over a large volume in redshift space around the quasars as well as full spectral information at each location. Thanks to these unique features, we are able to build control samples at large redshift distances from the quasars using the same data taken under the same conditions. By comparing the rest-frame equivalent width (EW0) distributions of the Ly{alpha} sources detected in proximity to the quasars and in control samples, we detect a clear correlation between the locations of high-EW0 objects and the quasars. This correlation is not seen in other properties, such as Ly{alpha} luminosities or volume overdensities, suggesting the possible fluorescent nature of at least some of these objects. Among these, we find six sources without continuum counterparts and EW0 limits larger than 240{AA} that are the best candidates for dark galaxies in our survey at z>3.5. The volume densities and properties, including inferred gas masses and star formation efficiencies, of these dark galaxy candidates are similar to those of previously detected candidates at z~2.4 in NB surveys. Moreover, if the most distant of these are fluorescently illuminated by the quasar, our results also provide a lower limit of t=60Myr on the quasar lifetime.
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- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/852/22
- Title:
- Ly{alpha} forest power spectrum at 1.8<=z<=3.4
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/852/22
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present a new measurement of the Ly{alpha} forest power spectrum at 1.8<z<3.4 using 74 Keck/HIRES and VLT/UVES high-resolution, high-signal-to-noise-ratio quasar spectra. We developed a custom pipeline to measure the power spectrum and its uncertainty, which fully accounts for finite resolution and noise and corrects for the bias induced by masking missing data, damped Ly{alpha} absorption systems, and metal absorption lines. Our measurement results in unprecedented precision on the small-scale modes k>0.02s/km, inaccessible to previous SDSS/BOSS analyses. It is well known that these high-k modes are highly sensitive to the thermal state of the intergalactic medium, but contamination by narrow metal lines is a significant concern. We quantify the effect of metals on the small- scale power and find a modest effect on modes with k<0.1s/km. As a result, by masking metals and restricting to k<0.1s/km, their impact is completely mitigated. We present an end-to-end Bayesian forward-modeling framework whereby mock spectra with the same noise, resolution, and masking as our data are generated from Ly{alpha} forest simulations. These mock spectra are used to build a custom emulator, enabling us to interpolate between a sparse grid of models and perform Markov chain Monte Carlo fits. Our results agree well with BOSS on scales k<0.02s/km, where the measurements overlap. The combination of the percent-level low-k precision of BOSS with our 5%-15% high-k measurements results in a powerful new data set for precisely constraining the thermal history of the intergalactic medium, cosmological parameters, and the nature of dark matter.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/457/102
- Title:
- Ly-Alpha Forest spectra simulation analysis. I.
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/457/102
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We present moderate-resolution (~50km/s FWHM) spectra of the Ly-alpha forest for seven quasars with redshifts ranging from 2.53 to 3.13, obtained with the Blue Spectrograph and photon-counting Reticon at the Multiple Mirror Telescope. Combined with spectra of 10 other quasars presented elsewhere, we have characterized the distribution of cloud properties in a way which was designed to minimize any subjective part of the analysis. We used artificial absorption spectra, with the same resolution, sampling and signal-to-noise ratio as a function of wavelength as the actual data. Distributions of the physical parameters of the Ly-alpha clouds, namely, the neutral hydrogen column density (N) and Doppler parameter (b), were approximated with d"N"/dN proportional to N^(-beta) and d"N"/db proportional to exp[-(b-<b>)^2/(2 sigma_b^2)], respectively. We constructed a grid of simulated spectra with different input parameters. Comparison of properties of the simulated spectra with the observed spectra yielded acceptable ranges of parameters. Our technique differs from previous similar work in that we use the information contained in the distribution of the strength of the absorption in each resolution element and the distribution of separations between absorption complexes. We derive beta =1.4+/-0.1 for N ranging from 10^13 to 10^16cm^-2 and <b>=30+/-15km/s. Most previous studies based on line lists indicated beta=1.7-1.9. We attribute this difference to flattening of the column density distribution for low N, recently confirmed by higher resolution observations. Our result for <b>, though consistent with values quoted in the literature, is of lower significance, since it is less than the resolution of our spectra. We conclude by commenting on the importance of line blending in data sets of this kind.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/458/427
- Title:
- Lyman alpha absorbers in 0.5<z<1.9 QSOs
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/458/427
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We investigate the evolution and the statistical properties of the Ly{alpha} absorbers of the intergalactic medium (IGM) in the largely unexplored redshift range z=0.5-1.9. We use high-resolution (R>=30000) UV (STIS) and optical (VLT/UVES and Keck/HIRES) spectra of nine bright quasars with z_em_<1.94. The Ly{alpha} lines detected in the lines of sight (LOS) towards these quasars are evaluated with a software package which determines simultaneously the quasar continuum and the line profiles.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/614/75
- Title:
- Lyman{alpha} emitting galaxies at z=2.38
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/614/75
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- In Paper 1 (Palunas et al., 2004ApJ...602..545P) of this series we identified an 80 comoving Mpc filament of candidate Ly{alpha}-emitting galaxies at redshift 2.38. In this paper we present spectroscopy of the 37 galaxy candidates. Our spectroscopy reached a surface brightness limit of 5.0x10^-17^erg/cm^2^/s/arcsec^2^. Of the 14 candidates down to this limit, 12 were confirmed to be Ly{alpha}-emitting galaxies at the filament redshift. We also obtained spectral confirmation for six of the lower surface brightness candidates, all of which also lay at the filament redshift. In addition, we identify a foreground cluster of QSOs at z=1.65.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/391/L11
- Title:
- Lyman alpha forest in HE 0515-4414
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/391/L11
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We investigated HST/STIS and VLT/UVES spectra of the bright QSO HE 0515-4414 (z_em_=1.73, B=15.0) to study the Lyman alpha forest in the redshift range 0.9 < z < 1.7 at a resolution <10km/s.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/391/1457
- Title:
- Lyman{alpha} forest in QSO pairs
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/391/1457
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We look for signs of the HI transverse proximity effect in the spectra of 130 quasi-stellar object (QSO) pairs, most with transverse separations in the plane of the sky of 0.1-3Mpc at z~2.2. We expected to see a decrease in Ly{alpha} forest HI absorption in the spectrum of background QSOs near the position of foreground QSOs. Instead, we see no change in the absorption in front of the foreground QSOs, and we see evidence for a 50 per cent increase in the absorption out to 6Mpc behind the foreground QSOs. Further, we see no change in the HI absorption along the line-of-sight to the foreground QSOs, the normal line-of-sight proximity effect. We may account for the lack of change in the HI absorption if the effect of extra ultraviolet photons is cancelled by higher gas density around QSOs. If so, the increase in absorption behind the QSOs then suggests that the higher gas density there is not cancelled by the UV radiation from the QSOs. We can explain our observations if QSOs have had their current UV luminosities for less than approximately a million years, a time-scale that has been suggested for accretion disc instabilities and gas depletion.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/MNRAS/335/555
- Title:
- Lyman-alpha forest of 5 QSOs
- Short Name:
- J/MNRAS/335/555
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- Combining a new, increased data set of eight quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) covering the Ly{alpha} forest at redshifts 1.5<z<3.6 from VLT/UVES observations with previously published results, we have investigated the properties of the Ly{alpha} forest at 1.5<z<4. With the six QSOs covering the Ly{alpha} forest at 1.5<z<2.5, we have extended previous studies in this redshift range. In particular, we have concentrated on the evolution of the line number density and the clustering of the Ly{alpha} forest at z<=2.5, where the Ly{alpha} forest starts to show some inhomogeneity from sightline to sightline. We have fitted Voigt profiles to the Ly{alpha} absorption lines as in previous studies, and have, for two QSOs with z_em_~2.4, fitted Ly{alpha} and higher order of Lyman lines down to 3050{AA} simultaneously. This latter approach has been taken in order to study the Ly{beta} forest at z~2.2 and the higher H I column density Ly{alpha} forest in the Ly{beta} forest region.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/662/72
- Title:
- Lyman alpha forest of 55 QSOs
- Short Name:
- J/ApJ/662/72
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- We examine the evolution of the IGM Ly{alpha} optical depth distribution using the transmitted flux probability distribution function (PDF) in a high-resolution sample of 55 QSOs spanning absorption redshifts 1.7<z<5.8. The data are compared to two theoretical {tau} distributions: a model distribution based on the density distribution of Miralda-Escude et al. (2000ApJ...530....1M; MHR00) and a lognormal distribution.
- ID:
- ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/A+A/373/757
- Title:
- Lyman-Alpha Forest of 3 QSOs
- Short Name:
- J/A+A/373/757
- Date:
- 21 Oct 2021
- Publisher:
- CDS
- Description:
- The line tables, tablea1.dat, tablea2.dat and tablea3.dat, list the fitted line parameters from Voigt-profile fitting of the Lyman-alpha forest clouds: redshift, z, the Doppler parameter, b, and its density, N. The profile fitting was done with the program VPFIT. The three QSOs, HE0515-4414, J2233-606 and HE2217-2818 were taken with VLT/UVES with a resolution of 45,000 and S/N of 30-50 in the forest regions.
