Where are the missing cosmic metals ?

Details Where are the missing cosmic metals ? Where are the missing cosmic metals ?

2005-10-18

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0510525v1

Astrophys.J.634:L37-L40,2005

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

9 pages, 2 figures, ApJ Letters, in press

Scientific paper

10.1086/498845

The majority of the heavy elements produced by stars 2 billion years after the Big Bang (redshift z~3) are presently undetected at those epochs. We propose a solution to this cosmic `missing metals' problem in which such elements are stored in gaseous halos produced by supernova explosions around star-forming galaxies. By using data from the ESO/VLT Large Program, we find that:(i) only 5%-9% of the produced metals reside in the cold phase, the rest being found in the hot (log T=5.8-6.4) phase; (ii) 1%-6% (3%-30%) of the observed CIV (OVI) is in the hot phase. We conclude that at z~3 more than 90% of the metals produced during the star forming history can be placed in a hot phase of the IGM, without violating any observational constraint. The observed galaxy mass-metallicity relation, and the intergalactic medium and intracluster medium metallicity evolution are also naturally explained by this hypothesis.

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