1,650,255 research outputs found
Detection of Ly\beta auto-correlations and Ly\alpha-Ly\beta cross-correlations in BOSS Data Release 9
The Lyman- forest refers to a region in the spectra of distant quasars
that lies between the rest-frame Lyman- and Lyman- emissions.
The forest in this region is dominated by a combination of absorption due to
resonant Ly and Ly scattering. When considering the 1D Ly
forest in addition to the 1D Ly forest, the full statistical
description of the data requires four 1D power spectra: Ly and
Ly auto-power spectra and the Ly-Ly real and imaginary
cross-power spectra. We describe how these can be measured using an optimal
quadratic estimator that naturally disentangles Ly and Ly
contributions. Using a sample of approximately 60,000 quasar sight-lines from
the BOSS Data Release 9, we make the measurement of the one-dimensional power
spectrum of fluctuations due to the Ly resonant scattering. While we
have not corrected our measurements for resolution damping of the power and
other systematic effects carefully enough to use them for cosmological
constraints, we can robustly conclude the following: i) Ly power
spectrum and Ly-Ly cross spectra are detected with high
statistical significance; ii) the cross-correlation coefficient is
on large scales; iii) the Ly measurements are contaminated by the
associated OVI absorption, which is analogous to the SiIII contamination of the
Ly forest. Measurements of the Ly forest will allow extension of
the usable path-length for the Ly measurements while allowing a better
understanding of the physics of intergalactic medium and thus more robust
cosmological constraints.Comment: 26 pages, 10 figures; matches version accepted by JCA
Ly profile, dust, and prediction of Ly escape fraction in Green Pea Galaxies
We studied Lyman- (Ly) escape in a statistical sample of 43
Green Peas with HST/COS Ly spectra. Green Peas are nearby star-forming
galaxies with strong [OIII]5007 emission lines. Our sample is four
times larger than the previous sample and covers a much more complete range of
Green Pea properties. We found that about 2/3 of Green Peas are strong
Ly line emitters with rest-frame Ly equivalent width \AA.
The Ly profiles of Green Peas are diverse. The Ly escape
fraction, defined as the ratio of observed Ly flux to intrinsic
Ly flux, shows anti-correlations with a few Ly kinematic
features -- both the blue peak and red peak velocities, the peak separations,
and FWHM of the red portion of the Ly profile. Using properties
measured from SDSS optical spectra, we found many correlations -- Ly
escape fraction generally increases at lower dust reddening, lower metallicity,
lower stellar mass, and higher [OIII]/[OII] ratio. We fit their Ly
profiles with the HI shell radiative transfer model and found Ly escape
fraction anti-correlates with the best-fit . Finally, we fit an
empirical linear relation to predict Ly escape fraction from the dust
extinction and Ly red peak velocity. The standard deviation of this
relation is about 0.3 dex. This relation can be used to isolate the effect of
IGM scatterings from Ly escape and to probe the IGM optical depth along
the line of sight of each Ly emission line galaxy in the JWST
era.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, 3 tables, machine-readable tables included. ApJ
in-pres
Diffuse Lyman Alpha Haloes around Lyman Alpha Emitters at z=3: Do Dark Matter Distributions Determine the Lyman Alpha Spatial Extents?
Using stacks of Ly-a images of 2128 Ly-a emitters (LAEs) and 24 protocluster
UV-selected galaxies (LBGs) at z=3.1, we examine the surface brightness
profiles of Ly-a haloes around high-z galaxies as a function of environment and
UV luminosity. We find that the slopes of the Ly-a radial profiles become
flatter as the Mpc-scale LAE surface densities increase, but they are almost
independent of the central UV luminosities. The characteristic exponential
scale lengths of the Ly-a haloes appear to be proportional to the square of the
LAE surface densities (r(Lya) \propto Sigma(LAE)^2). Including the diffuse,
extended Ly-a haloes, the rest-frame Ly-a equivalent width of the LAEs in the
densest regions approaches EW_0(Lya) ~ 200 A, the maximum value expected for
young (< 10^7 yr) galaxies. This suggests that Ly-a photons formed via shock
compression by gas outflows or cooling radiation by gravitational gas inflows
may partly contribute to illuminate the Ly-a haloes; however, most of their
Ly-a luminosity can be explained by photo-ionisation by ionising photons or
scattering of Ly-a photons produced in HII regions in and around the central
galaxies. Regardless of the source of Ly-a photons, if the Ly-a haloes trace
the overall gaseous structure following the dark matter distributions, it is
not surprising that the Ly-a spatial extents depend more strongly on the
surrounding Mpc-scale environment than on the activities of the central
galaxies.Comment: 7 pages, 4 figures, accepted for publication in MNRA
A new model framework for circumgalactic Ly radiative transfer constrained by galaxy-Ly forest clustering
We present a new perturbative approach to "constrained Ly radiative
transfer'" (RT) through the circum- and inter-galactic medium (CGM and IGM). We
constrain the HI content and kinematics of the CGM and IGM in a physically
motivated model, using the galaxy-Ly forest clustering data from
spectroscopic galaxy surveys in QSO fields at . This enables us to
quantify the impact of the CGM/IGM on Ly emission in an observationally
constrained, realistic cosmological environment. Our model predicts that the
CGM and IGM at these redshifts transmit of Ly photons
after having escaped from galaxies. This implies that while the inter-stellar
medium primarily regulates Ly escape, the CGM has a non-negligible
impact on the observed Ly line properties and the inferred Ly
escape fraction, even at . Ly scattering in the CGM and IGM
further introduces an environmental dependence in the (apparent) Ly
escape fraction, and the observed population of Ly emitting galaxies:
the CGM/IGM more strongly suppresses direct Ly emission from galaxies
in overdense regions in the Universe, and redistributes this emission into
brighter Ly haloes. The resulting mean surface brightness profile of
the Ly haloes is generally found to be a power-law .
Although our model still contains arbitrariness, our results demonstrate how
(integral field) spectroscopic surveys of galaxies in QSO fields constrain
circumgalactic Ly RT, and we discuss the potential of these models for
studying CGM physics and cosmology.Comment: 20 pages, 14 figures, the version accepted in MNRA
Constraining Lyman-alpha spatial offsets at from VANDELS slit spectroscopy
We constrain the distribution of spatially offset Lyman-alpha emission
(Ly) relative to rest-frame ultraviolet emission in high
redshift () Lyman-break galaxies (LBGs) exhibiting Ly emission
from VANDELS, a VLT/VIMOS slit-spectroscopic survey of the CANDELS Ultra Deep
Survey and Chandra Deep Field South fields (
total). Because slit spectroscopy compresses two-dimensional spatial
information into one spatial dimension, we use Bayesian inference to recover
the underlying Ly spatial offset distribution. We model the
distribution using a 2D circular Gaussian, defined by a single parameter
, the standard deviation expressed in polar
coordinates. Over the entire redshift range of our sample (), we find
kpc ( conf.),
corresponding to arcsec at . We also find that
decreases significantly with redshift. Because
Ly spatial offsets can cause slit-losses, the decrease in
with redshift can partially explain the increase
in the fraction of Ly emitters observed in the literature over this
same interval, although uncertainties are still too large to reach a strong
conclusion. If continues to decrease into the
reionization epoch, then the decrease in Ly transmission from galaxies
observed during this epoch might require an even higher neutral hydrogen
fraction than what is currently inferred. Conversely, if spatial offsets
increase with the increasing opacity of the IGM, slit losses may explain some
of the drop in Ly transmission observed at . Spatially resolved
observations of Ly and UV continuum at are needed to settle the
issue.Comment: Submitted to MNRA
The Lyman Alpha Reference Sample. VIII. Characterizing Lyman-Alpha Scattering in Nearby Galaxies
We examine the dust geometry and Ly{\alpha} scattering in the galaxies of the
Lyman Alpha Reference Sample (LARS), a set of 14 nearby (0.02 < < 0.2)
Ly{\alpha} emitting and starbursting systems with Hubble Space Telescope
Ly{\alpha}, H{\alpha}, and H{\beta} imaging. We find that the global dust
properties determined by line ratios are consistent with other studies, with
some of the LARS galaxies exhibiting clumpy dust media while others of them
show significantly lower Ly{\alpha} emission compared to their Balmer
decrement. With the LARS imaging, we present Ly{\alpha}/H{\alpha} and
H{\alpha}/H{\beta} maps with spatial resolutions as low as 40 pc, and
use these data to show that in most galaxies, the dust geometry is best modeled
by three distinct regions: a central core where dust acts as a screen, an
annulus where dust is distributed in clumps, and an outer envelope where
Ly{\alpha} photons only scatter. We show that the dust that affects the escape
of Ly{\alpha} is more restricted to the galaxies' central regions, while the
larger Ly{\alpha} halos are generated by scattering at large radii. We present
an empirical modeling technique to quantify how much Ly{\alpha} scatters in the
halo, and find that this "characteristic" scattering distance correlates with
the measured size of the Ly{\alpha} halo. We note that there exists a slight
anti-correlation between the scattering distance of Ly{\alpha} and global dust
properties.Comment: 32 pages, 51 figures, accepted to Ap
The VANDELS survey: A strong correlation between Ly equivalent width and stellar metallicity at
We present the results of a new study investigating the relationship between
observed Ly equivalent width ((Ly)) and the
metallicity of the ionizing stellar population () for a sample of
star-forming galaxies at drawn from the VANDELS survey.
Dividing our sample into quartiles of rest-frame (Ly)
across the range -58 \unicode{xC5} \lesssim (Ly)
\lesssim 110 \unicode{xC5} we determine from full spectral
fitting of composite far-ultraviolet (FUV) spectra and find a clear
anti-correlation between (Ly) and . Our results
indicate that decreases by a factor between the lowest
(Ly) quartile
((Ly)\rangle=-18\unicode{xC5}) and the highest
(Ly) quartile
((Ly)\rangle=24\unicode{xC5}). Similarly,
galaxies typically defined as Lyman Alpha Emitters (LAEs;
(Ly) >20\unicode{xC5}) are, on average, metal poor with
respect to the non-LAE galaxy population ((Ly)
\leq20\unicode{xC5}) with
. Finally, based on the best-fitting stellar models, we
estimate that the increasing strength of the stellar ionizing spectrum towards
lower is responsible for of the observed variation
in (Ly) across our sample, with the remaining contribution
() being due to a decrease in the HI/dust covering fractions in
low galaxies.Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, MNRAS accepte
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