FIREBall, CHAS, and the diffuse universe

The diffuse universe, consisting of baryons that have not yet collapsed into structures such as stars, galaxies, etc., has not been well studied. While the intergalactic and circumgalactic mediums (IGM & CGM) may contain 30-40% of the baryons in the universe, this low density gas is difficult to observe. Yet it is likely a key driver of the evolution of galaxies and star formation through cosmic time. The IGM provides a reservoir of gas that can be used for star formation, if it is able to accrete onto a galaxy. The CGM bridges the IGM and the galaxy itself, as a region of both inflows from the IGM and outflows from galactic star formation and feedback. The diffuse interstellar medium (ISM) gas and dust in the galaxy itself may also be affected by the CGM of the galaxy. Careful observations of the ISM of our own Galaxy may provide evidence of interaction with the CGM. These three regions of low density, the IGM, CGM, and ISM, are arbitrary divisions of a continuous flow of low density material into and out of galaxies. My thesis focuses on observations of this low density material using existing telescopes as well as on the development of technology and instruments that will increase the sensitivity of future missions. I used data from the Galaxy Evolution Explorer (GALEX) to create an all sky map of the diffuse Galactic far ultraviolet (FUV) background, probing the ISM of our own galaxy and comparing to other Galactic all sky maps. The FUV background is primarily due to dust scattered starlight from bright stars in the Galactic plane, and the changing intensity across the sky can be used to characterize dust scattering asymmetry and albedo. We measure a consistent low level non-scattered isotropic component to the diffuse FUV, which may be due in small part to an extragalactic component. There are also several regions of unusually high FUV intensity given other Galactic quantities. Such regions may be the location of interactions between Galactic super-bubbles and the CGM. Other ways of probing the CGM including direct detection via emission lines. I built a proto-type of the Circumgalactic Hα Spectrograph (CHαS), a wide-field, low-cost, narrow-band integral field unit (IFU) that is designed to observe Hα emission from the CGM of nearby, low-z galaxies. This proto-type has had two recent science runs, with preliminary data on several nearby galaxies. Additional probes of the CGM are emission lines in the rest ultra-violet. These include OVI, Lyα, CIV, SiIII, CIII, CII, FeII, and MgII. Such lines are accessible for low redshift galaxies in the space UV, historically a difficult wavelength range in which to work due in part to low efficiency of the available detectors. I have worked with NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory to develop advanced anti-reflection (AR) coatings for use on thinned, delta-doped charge coupled device (CCD) detectors. These detectors have achieved world record quantum efficiency (QE) at UV wavelengths (> 50% between 130 nm and 300nm), with the potential for even greater QE with a more complex coating. One of these AR coated detectors will be used on the Faint Intergalactic Redshifted Emission Balloon (FIREBall-2), a balloon-born UV spectrograph designed to observe the CGM at 205 nm via redshifted Lyα (at z=0.7), CIV (at z=0.3), and OVI (at z=1.0). FIREBall-2 will launch in the fall of 2015

Revisiting FUSE O VI Emission in Galaxy Halos

A significant fraction of baryons in galaxies are in the form of diffuse gas of the circumgalactic medium (CGM). One critical component of the multi-phases of CGM, the so-called "coronal" warm-hot phase gas ($\rm 10^{5}-10^{6}$ K) traced by O VI 1031.93, 1037.62 \r{A} resonance lines, has rarely been detected in emission from galaxy halos other than Milky Way. Here we report four additional detections of O VI emission gas in the halos of nearby edge-on galaxies, NGC 4631 and NGC 891, using archival Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer data and an updated data pipeline. We find the most intense O VI emission to be from fields forming a vertical line near the center of NGC 4631, despite the close proximity to the disk of two other fields. The detected O VI emission surface brightness are about 1.1$\pm 0.3$ $\times$ $10^{-18}$ to 3.9$\pm0.8$ $\times$ $10^{-18}$ ergs s$^{-1}$ cm$^{-2}$ arcsec$^{-2}$. The spatial distribution of the five 30" $\times$ 30" O VI detection fields in NGC 4631 can be interpreted as the existence of filamentary structures of more intense O VI emission superimposed within a diffuse and faint O VI halo in star-forming galaxies. Volume-filled O VI emission mapping is greatly needed to determine the structure and prevalence of warm-hot gas and the role it plays in the cycling of gas between the galaxy disk and the halo. Finally, we present the sensitivity of future funded and proposed UV missions (LUVOIR-A, LUVOIR-B, CETUS, and Aspera) to the detection of diffuse and faint O VI emission in nearby galaxy halos.Comment: 12 pages, 5 figures, accepted for publication in Ap

Special Section Guest Editorial: Detectors for Astronomy and Cosmology

This guest editorial summarizes the Special Section on Detectors for Astronomy and Cosmology

Filament formation via collision-induced magnetic reconnection - formation of a star cluster

Funding: RJS gratefully acknowledges an STFC Ernest Rutherford fellowship (grant ST/N00485X/1) and HPC from the Durham DiRAC supercomputing facility (grants ST/P002293/1, ST/R002371/1, ST/S002502/1, and ST/R000832/1.A collision-induced magnetic reconnection (CMR) mechanism was recently proposed to explain the formation of a filament in the Orion A molecular cloud. In this mechanism, a collision between two clouds with antiparallel magnetic fields produces a dense filament due to the magnetic tension of the reconnected fields. The filament contains fiber-like sub-structures and is confined by a helical magnetic field. To show whether the dense filament is capable of forming stars, we use the AREPO code with sink particles to model star formation following the formation of the CMR-filament. First, the CMR-filament formation is confirmed with AREPO. Secondly, the filament is able to form a star cluster after it collapses along its main axis. Compared to the control model without magnetic fields, the CMR model shows two distinctive features. First, the CMR-cluster is confined to a factor of ∼4 smaller volume. The confinement is due to the combination of the helical field and gravity. Secondly, the CMR model has a factor of ∼2 lower star formation rate. The slower star formation is again due to the surface helical field that hinders gas inflow from larger scales. Mass is only supplied to the accreting cluster through streamers.Peer reviewe

The FLASHES Survey I: Integral Field Spectroscopy of the CGM around 48 z=2.3−3.1z=2.3-3.1 QSOs

We present the pilot study component of the Fluorescent Lyman-Alpha Structures in High-z Environments (FLASHES) Survey; the largest integral-field spectroscopy survey to date of the circumgalactic medium at $z=2.3-3.1$. We observed 48 quasar fields between 2015 and 2018 with the Palomar Cosmic Web Imager (Matuszewski et al. 2010). Extended HI Lyman-$\mathrm{\alpha}$ emission is discovered around 42/48 of the observed quasars, ranging in projected, flux-weighted radius from 21-71 proper kiloparsecs (pkpc), with 26 nebulae exceeding $100\mathrm{~pkpc}$ in effective diameter. The circularly averaged surface brightness radial profile peaks at a maximum of $\mathrm{1\times 10^{-17}~erg~s^{-1}~cm^{-2}~arcsec^{-2}}$ ($2\times10^{-15}~\mathrm{erg~s^{-1}~cm^{-2}~arcsec^{-2}}$ adjusted for cosmological dimming) and luminosities range from $1.9\times10^{43}~\mathrm{erg~s^{-1}}$ to $-14.1\times10^{43}~\mathrm{erg~s^{-1}}$. The emission appears to have a highly eccentric morphology and a maximum covering factor of $50\%$ ($60\%$ for giant nebulae). On average, the nebular spectra are red-shifted with respect to both the systemic redshift and Ly$\alpha$ peak of the quasar spectrum. The integrated spectra of the nebulae mostly have single or double-peaked line shapes with global dispersions ranging from $167~\mathrm{km~s^{-1}}$ to $690~\mathrm{km~s^{-1}}$, though the individual (Gaussian) components of lines with complex shapes mostly appear to have dispersions $\leq 400$ $\mathrm{km~s^{-1}}$, and the flux-weighted velocity centroids of the lines vary by thousands of $\mathrm{km~s^{-1}}$ with respect to the systemic QSO redshifts. Finally, the root-mean-square velocities of the nebulae are found to be consistent with gravitational motions expected in dark matter halos of mass $\mathrm{M_h \simeq10^{12.5} M_\odot}$. We compare these results to existing surveys at both higher and lower redshift

UV photon-counting CCD detectors that enable the next generation of UV spectroscopy missions: AR coatings that can achieve 80-90% QE

We describe recent progress in the development of anti-reflection coatings for use at UV wavelengths on CCDs and other Si-based detectors. We have previously demonstrated a set of coatings which are able to achieve greater than 50% QE in 4 bands from 130nm to greater than 300nm. We now present new refinements of these AR-coatings which will improve performance in a narrower bandpass by 50% over previous work. Successful test films have been made to optimize transmission at 190nm, reaching 80% potential transmission

The faint intergalactic-medium red-shifted emission balloon: future UV observations with EMCCDs

We present the latest developments in our joint NASA/CNES suborbital project. This project is a balloon-borne UV multi-object spectrograph, which has been designed to detect faint emission from the circumgalactic medium (CGM) around low redshift galaxies. One major change from FIREBall-1 has been the use of a delta-doped Electron Multiplying CCD (EMCCD). EMCCDs can be used in photon-counting (PC) mode to achieve extremely low readout noise (¡ 1e-). Our testing initially focused on reducing clock-induced-charge (CIC) through wave shaping and well depth optimisation with the CCD Controller for Counting Photons (CCCP) from Nüvü. This optimisation also includes methods for reducing dark current, via cooling and substrate voltage adjustment. We present result of laboratory noise measurements including dark current. Furthermore, we will briefly present some initial results from our first set of on-sky observations using a delta-doped EMCCD on the 200 inch telescope at Palomar using the Palomar Cosmic Web Imager (PCWI)

Special Section Guest Editorial: Detectors for Astronomy and Cosmology

This guest editorial summarizes the Special Section on Detectors for Astronomy and Cosmology

FIREBall-2: advancing TRL while doing proof-of-concept astrophysics on a suborbital platform

Here we discuss advances in UV technology over the last decade, with an emphasis on photon counting, low noise, high efficiency detectors in sub-orbital programs. We focus on the use of innovative UV detectors in a NASA astrophysics balloon telescope, FIREBall-2, which successfully flew in the Fall of 2018. The FIREBall-2 telescope is designed to make observations of distant galaxies to understand more about how they evolve by looking for diffuse hydrogen in the galactic halo. The payload utilizes a 1.0-meter class telescope with an ultraviolet multi-object spectrograph and is a joint collaboration between Caltech, JPL, LAM, CNES, Columbia, the University of Arizona, and NASA. The improved detector technology that was tested on FIREBall-2 can be applied to any UV mission. We discuss the results of the flight and detector performance. We will also discuss the utility of sub-orbital platforms (both balloon payloads and rockets) for testing new technologies and proof-of-concept scientific ideas