TY - JOUR
T1 - Metal content of the circumgalactic medium around star-forming galaxies at z ~ 2.6 as revealed by the VIMOS Ultra-Deep Survey
AU - Méndez-Hernández, H.
AU - Cassata, P.
AU - Ibar, E.
AU - Amorín, R.
AU - Aravena, M.
AU - Bardelli, S.
AU - Cucciati, O.
AU - Garilli, B.
AU - Giavalisco, M.
AU - Guaita, L.
AU - Hathi, N.
AU - Koekemoer, A.
AU - Le Brun, V.
AU - Lemaux, B. C.
AU - MacCagni, D.
AU - Ribeiro, B.
AU - Tasca, L.
AU - Tejos, N.
AU - Thomas, R.
AU - Tresse, L.
AU - Vergani, D.
AU - Zamorani, G.
AU - Zucca, E.
N1 - Funding Information:
We thank an anonymous referee for constructive comments and suggestions that improved the manuscript. Based on data obtained with the European Southern Observatory Very Large Telescope, Paranal, Chile, under Large Programs 175.A-0839, 177.A-0837, and 185.A-0791. This work is based on data products made available at the CESAM data center, Laboratoire d’Astrophysique de Marseille. This work partly uses observations obtained with MegaPrime/MegaCam, a joint project of CFHT and CEA/DAPNIA, at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope (CFHT) which is operated by the National Research Council (NRC) of Canada, the Institut National des Sciences de l’Univers of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) of France, and the University of Hawaii. This work is based in part on data products produced at TERAPIX and the Canadian Astronomy Data Centre as part of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope Legacy Survey, a collaborative project of NRC and CNRS. H.M.H. acknowledge partial support from National Fund for Scientific and Technological Research of Chile (Fondecyt) through grants no. 1171710 & 1150216. E.I. acknowledges partial support from FONDECYT through grants N° 1221846 and 1171710. M.A. acknowledges support from FONDECYT grant 1211951, “ANID+PCI+INSTITUTO MAX PLANCK DE ASTRONOMIA MPG 190030” and “ANID+PCI+REDES 190194”. R.A. acknowledges support from ANID FONDECYT Regular Grant 1202007. We thank ESO staff for their support for the VUDS survey, particularly the Paranal staff conducting the observations and Marina Rejkuba and the ESO user support group in Garching. This research used Astropy ( http://www.astropy.org ), a community-developed core Python package for Astronomy (Astropy Collaboration 2013, 2018), Numpy (Harris et al. 2020), Scipy (Virtanen et al. 2020) and Matplotlib (Hunter 2007).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 Authors.
PY - 2022/10/1
Y1 - 2022/10/1
N2 - Context. The circumgalactic medium (CGM) is the location where the interplay between large-scale outflows and accretion onto galaxies occurs. Metals in different ionization states flowing between the circumgalactic and intergalactic mediums are affected by large galactic outflows and low-ionization state inflowing gas. Observational studies on their spatial distribution and their relation with galaxy properties may provide important constraints on models of galaxy formation and evolution. Aims. The main goal of this paper is to provide new insights into the spatial distribution of the circumgalactic of star-forming galaxies at 1.5 < z < 4.5 (z ~2.6) in the peak epoch of cosmic star formation activity in the Universe. We also look for possible correlations between the strength of the low- and high-ionization absorption features (LIS and HIS) and stellar mass, star formation rate, effective radius, and azimuthal angle φ that defines the location of the absorbing gas relative to the galaxy disc plane. Methods. The CGM has been primarily detected via the absorption features that it produces on the continuum spectrum of bright background sources. We selected a sample of 238 close pairs from the VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey to examine the spatial distribution of the gas located around star-forming galaxies and generate composite spectra by co-adding spectra of background galaxies that provide different sight-lines across the CGM of star-forming galaxies. Results. We detect LIS (CII and SiII) and HIS (SiIV, CIV) up to separations b = 172 kpc and 146 kpc. Beyond this separation, we do not detect any significant signal of CGM absorption in the background composite spectra. Our Lyα, LIS, and HIS rest-frame equivalent width (W0) radial profiles are at the upper envelope of the W0 measurements at lower redshifts, suggesting a potential redshift evolution for the CGM gas content producing these absorptions. We find a correlation between CII and CIV with star formation rate and stellar mass, as well as trends with galaxy size estimated by the effective radius and azimuthal angle. Galaxies with high star formation rate (log[SFR/(M⊙ yr-1)] > 1.5) and stellar mass (log[M∗/M⊙] > 10.2) show stronger CIV absorptions compared with those low SFR (log[SFR/(M⊙ yr-1)] < 0.9) and low stellar mass (log[M∗/M⊙] < 9.26). The latter population instead shows stronger CII absorption than their more massive or more star-forming counterparts. We compute the CII/CIVW0 line ratio that confirms the CII and CIV correlations with impact parameter, stellar mass, and star formation rate. We do not find any correlation with φ in agreement with other high-redshift studies and in contradiction to what is observed at low redshift where large-scale outflows along the minor axis forming bipolar outflows are detected. Conclusions. We find that the stronger CIV line absorptions in the outer regions of these star-forming galaxies could be explained by stronger outflows in galaxies with higher star formation rates and stellar masses that are capable of projecting the ionized gas up to large distances and/or by stronger UV ionizing radiation in these galaxies that is able to ionize the gas even at large distances. On the other hand, low-mass galaxies show stronger CII absorptions, suggesting larger reservoirs of cold gas that could be explained by a softer radiation field unable to ionize high-ionization state lines or by the galactic fountain scenario where metal-rich gas ejected from previous star formation episodes falls back to the galaxy. These large reservoirs of cold neutral gas around low-mass galaxies could be funnelled into the galaxies and eventually provide the necessary fuel to sustain star formation activity.
AB - Context. The circumgalactic medium (CGM) is the location where the interplay between large-scale outflows and accretion onto galaxies occurs. Metals in different ionization states flowing between the circumgalactic and intergalactic mediums are affected by large galactic outflows and low-ionization state inflowing gas. Observational studies on their spatial distribution and their relation with galaxy properties may provide important constraints on models of galaxy formation and evolution. Aims. The main goal of this paper is to provide new insights into the spatial distribution of the circumgalactic of star-forming galaxies at 1.5 < z < 4.5 (z ~2.6) in the peak epoch of cosmic star formation activity in the Universe. We also look for possible correlations between the strength of the low- and high-ionization absorption features (LIS and HIS) and stellar mass, star formation rate, effective radius, and azimuthal angle φ that defines the location of the absorbing gas relative to the galaxy disc plane. Methods. The CGM has been primarily detected via the absorption features that it produces on the continuum spectrum of bright background sources. We selected a sample of 238 close pairs from the VIMOS Ultra Deep Survey to examine the spatial distribution of the gas located around star-forming galaxies and generate composite spectra by co-adding spectra of background galaxies that provide different sight-lines across the CGM of star-forming galaxies. Results. We detect LIS (CII and SiII) and HIS (SiIV, CIV) up to separations b = 172 kpc and 146 kpc. Beyond this separation, we do not detect any significant signal of CGM absorption in the background composite spectra. Our Lyα, LIS, and HIS rest-frame equivalent width (W0) radial profiles are at the upper envelope of the W0 measurements at lower redshifts, suggesting a potential redshift evolution for the CGM gas content producing these absorptions. We find a correlation between CII and CIV with star formation rate and stellar mass, as well as trends with galaxy size estimated by the effective radius and azimuthal angle. Galaxies with high star formation rate (log[SFR/(M⊙ yr-1)] > 1.5) and stellar mass (log[M∗/M⊙] > 10.2) show stronger CIV absorptions compared with those low SFR (log[SFR/(M⊙ yr-1)] < 0.9) and low stellar mass (log[M∗/M⊙] < 9.26). The latter population instead shows stronger CII absorption than their more massive or more star-forming counterparts. We compute the CII/CIVW0 line ratio that confirms the CII and CIV correlations with impact parameter, stellar mass, and star formation rate. We do not find any correlation with φ in agreement with other high-redshift studies and in contradiction to what is observed at low redshift where large-scale outflows along the minor axis forming bipolar outflows are detected. Conclusions. We find that the stronger CIV line absorptions in the outer regions of these star-forming galaxies could be explained by stronger outflows in galaxies with higher star formation rates and stellar masses that are capable of projecting the ionized gas up to large distances and/or by stronger UV ionizing radiation in these galaxies that is able to ionize the gas even at large distances. On the other hand, low-mass galaxies show stronger CII absorptions, suggesting larger reservoirs of cold gas that could be explained by a softer radiation field unable to ionize high-ionization state lines or by the galactic fountain scenario where metal-rich gas ejected from previous star formation episodes falls back to the galaxy. These large reservoirs of cold neutral gas around low-mass galaxies could be funnelled into the galaxies and eventually provide the necessary fuel to sustain star formation activity.
KW - Galaxies: high-redshift
KW - Galaxies: star formation
KW - Galaxy: evolution
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85140982300&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1051/0004-6361/202142553
DO - 10.1051/0004-6361/202142553
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85140982300
VL - 666
JO - Astronomy and Astrophysics
JF - Astronomy and Astrophysics
SN - 0004-6361
M1 - A56
ER -