Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Nov 1981
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=1981mnras.197..553b&link_type=abstract
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 197, Nov. 1981, p. 553-563.
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
185
Gas Density, Gas Ionization, Gravitational Collapse, Intergalactic Media, Ion Production Rates, Lyman Alpha Radiation, Cooling, Ion Recombination, Photoionization, Quasars, Thermodynamic Equilibrium
Scientific paper
The equations of ionization and thermal equilibrium have been solved for a low-density photoionized gas of hydrogen and helium in intergalactic space at a red shift of approximately 2.4. When the rates of ionization, recombination, heating, and cooling processes are in steady state, the structure of the gas approaches that of a polytrope of index N = -3.5 for densities in the range 0.000001-0.001 per cu cm. In such a structure the concentration of observable neutral atoms has a much steeper gradient than does the total density. The properties of such configurations are compared with observations of QSO absorption lines attributed to isolated intergalactic clouds; and it is found that hydrogen Lyman-alpha lines in distant QSOs can arise in the densest part of a smooth distribution of intergalactic matter rather than in isolated clouds embedded in a rarefied uniform medium. Properties of intergalactic clouds are examined in relation to recent observations and equilibrium models.
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