Table · dataset · 2014
Quasar pairs spectroscopy
Listed in IVOA Registry (Virtual Observatory)
The hosts of luminous z~2 quasars evolve into today's massive elliptical galaxies.
Description
Current theories predict that the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of these massive, dark matter halos (M_DM_~10^12.5^M_{sun}_) should be dominated by a T~10^7^K virialized plasma. We test this hypothesis with observations of 74 close-projected quasar pairs, using spectra of the background QSO to characterize the CGM of the foreground one.
Surprisingly, our measurements reveal a cool (T~10^4^K), massive (M_CGM_>10^10^M_{sun}_), and metal-enriched (Z>~0.1Z_{sun}_) medium extending to at least the expected virial radius (r_vir_=160kpc). Furthermore, we conservatively estimate that the quasar CGM has a 64^+6^_-7_% covering fraction of optically thick gas (N_HI_>10^17.2^/cm^2^) within r_vir_; this covering factor is twice that of the contemporaneous Lyman break galaxy population.
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This unexpected reservoir of cool gas is rarely detected "down-the-barrel" to quasars, and hence it is likely that our background sight lines intercept gas that is shadowed from the quasar ionizing radiation by the same obscuring medium often invoked in models of active galactic nucleus unification. Because the high-z halos inhabited by quasars predate modern groups and clusters, these observations are also relevant to the formation and enrichment history of the intragroup/intracluster medium.
Links
Where it is published
- Reference page cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/762/L19 ↗
landing page · from IVOA Registry
Documentation and papers
- ADS 2013ApJ...762L..19P ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2013ApJ...762L..19P ↗
publication · from IVOA Registry
Catalogue records · 2
- VOResource record dc.g-vo.org/oai.xml?verb=GetRecord&metadataPrefix=ivo_vor&identifier=ivo%3… ↗
metadata API · from IVOA Registry
- Registry record (GAVO) dc.g-vo.org/I/cds.vizier/j/apj/762/l19 ↗
catalogue entry · from IVOA Registry
Topics
- Stated by source
- Optical
- From keywords
- Astronomy & Astrophysics
Provenance · 1 source records, 8 field assertions
| Source | Key | Last seen | Raw |
|---|---|---|---|
| IVOA Registry (Virtual Observatory) | ivo://cds.vizier/j/apj/762/l19 | 13 d ago | JSON v1 |
| Field | Assertion | Extractor | Evidence |
|---|---|---|---|
| access_level | source · IVOA Registry | connector:ivoa_registry@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[field].local:field:astronomy | mapping · IVOA Registry | connector:ivoa_registry@1.0.0 | |
| concepts[modality].ivoa_waveband:optical | source · IVOA Registry | connector:ivoa_registry@1.0.0 | |
| description | source · IVOA Registry | connector:ivoa_registry@1.0.0 | rr.resource.res_description |
| license_text | source · IVOA Registry | connector:ivoa_registry@1.0.0 | |
| publication_date | source · IVOA Registry | connector:ivoa_registry@1.0.0 | |
| title | source · IVOA Registry | connector:ivoa_registry@1.0.0 | rr.resource.res_title |
| updated_date | source · IVOA Registry | connector:ivoa_registry@1.0.0 |