Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astrophysics
Scientific paper
2004-08-25
Nature 430 (2004) 999-1001
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astrophysics
4 pages, 4 figures. Published as a Letter to Nature in the August 26, 2004 issue; see accompanying News and Views article by Z
Scientific paper
10.1038/nature02793
Quasars are the visible signatures of super-massive black holes in the centres of distant galaxies. It has been suggested that quasars are formed during ``major merger events'' when two massive galaxies collide and merge, leading to the prediction that quasars should be found in the centres of the regions of largest overdensity in the early Universe. In dark matter (DM)-dominated models of the early Universe, massive DM halos are predicted to attract the surrounding gas, which falls towards its centre. The neutral gas is not detectable in emission by itself, but gas falling into the ionizing cone of such a quasar will glow in the Lyman-alpha line of hydrogen, effectively imaging the DM halo. Here we present a Lyman-alpha image of a DM halo at redshift 3, along with a two-dimensional spectrum of the gaseous halo. Our observations are best understood in the context of the standard model for DM halos; we infer a mass of (2-7) x 10^12 solar masses (Msun) for the halo.
Fynbo Johan P. U.
Moller Palle
Weidinger Michael
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