Detecting the Warm-Hot IGM via Ultraviolet Absorbers

Details Detecting the Warm-Hot IGM via Ultraviolet Absorbers Detecting the Warm-Hot IGM via Ultraviolet Absorbers

Feb 2010

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010head...11.0604d&link_type=abstract

American Astronomical Society, HEAD meeting #11, #6.04; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.658

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

Detecting the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM, T=105-107 K) via X-ray absorption in highly-ionized metal ions is a major goal in X-ray astronomy today. Species such as OVII and OVIII are predicted to be present in large quantities in the IGM, tracing metal-enriched diffuse gas at T>106 K. This reservoir of WHIM may make up a substantial fraction of the "missing" baryons in the low-redshift universe, however detections from Chandra and XMM-Newton been few and controversial. In the mean time, alternate methods of detecting the WHIM via far-UV absorbers are yielding impressive results. Roughly 100 highly-ionized metal ion detections (OVI, NV, etc) trace enriched, shock-heated gas at T<106 K. The catalog of far-UV WHIM absorbers is now large enough to not only detect the WHIM, but to start statistically-meaningful investigations as to its nature, origin, and distribution. Thermally-broadened Lyman-alpha absorbers are a second avenue of WHIM investigation which is similarly starting to produce results. Unlike either X-ray or UV metal line surveys, broad Lya studies are independent of metal enrichment and thus can trace hot gas in low-metallicity voids. Together, these two UV spectroscopic methods can account for 20% of the local baryons in the local universe.

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