
Unpublished Paper
The COS-Dwarfs Survey: The Carbon Reservoir Around Sub-L Galaxies
The Astrophysical Journal
(2014)
Abstract
We report new observations of circumgalactic gas from the COS-Dwarfs survey, a systematic investigation of the gaseous halos around 43 low-mass z ≤ 0.1 galaxies using background QSOs observed with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph. From the projected one-dimensional and two-dimensional distribution of C iv absorption, we find that C iv is detected out to ≈100 kpc (corresponding roughly to ≈0.5 Rvir) of the host galaxies. The C iv absorption strength falls off radially as a power law, and beyond ≈0.5 Rvir, no C iv absorption is detected above our sensitivity limit of ≈50–100 mÅ. We find a tentative correlation between detected C iv absorption strength and star formation, paralleling the strong correlation seen in highly ionized oxygen for L ~ L* galaxies by the COS-Halos survey. The data imply a large carbon reservoir in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of these galaxies, corresponding to a minimum carbon mass of gsim 1.2 × 106 M☉ out to ~110 kpc. This mass is comparable to the carbon mass in the interstellar medium and exceeds the carbon mass currently in the stars of these galaxies. The C iv absorption seen around these sub-L* galaxies can account for almost two-thirds of all Wr ≥ 100 mÅ C iv absorption detected at low z. Comparing the C iv covering fraction with hydrodynamical simulations, we find that an energy-driven wind model is consistent with the observations whereas a wind model of constant velocity fails to reproduce the CGM or the galaxy properties.
Keywords
- galaxies: evloution,
- halos,
- general galaxies: quasars: absorption lines,
- intergalactic medium
Disciplines
Publication Date
2014
Comments
Prepublished version downloaded from ArXiv. Published version is located at http://iopscience.iop.org/0004-637X/796/2/136/article
Citation Information
Rongmon Bordoloi, Jason Tumlinson, Jessica K. Werk, Benjamin D. Oppenheimer, et al.. "The COS-Dwarfs Survey: The Carbon Reservoir Around Sub-L Galaxies" The Astrophysical Journal (2014) Available at: http://works.bepress.com/neal_katz/14/