OI abs. search in Keck and VLT spectra of 199 QSOs Virtual Observatory Resource

Authors
  1. Becker G.D.
  2. Pettini M.
  3. Rafelski M.
  4. D'Odorico V.
  5. Boera E.,Christensen L.
  6. Cupani G.
  7. Ellison S.L.
  8. Farina E.P.
  9. Fumagalli M.,Lopez S.
  10. Neeleman M.
  11. Ryan-Weber E.V.
  12. Worseck G.
  13. Published by
    CDS
Abstract

We present a survey for metal absorption systems traced by neutral oxygen over 3.2<z<6.5. Our survey uses Keck/ESI and VLT/X-Shooter spectra of 199 QSOs with redshifts up to 6.6. In total, we detect 74 OI absorbers, of which 57 are separated from the background QSO by more than 5000km/s. We use a maximum likelihood approach to fit the distribution of OI{lambda}1302 equivalent widths in bins of redshift and from this determine the evolution in number density of absorbers with W_1302_>0.05{AA}, of which there are 49 nonproximate systems in our sample. We find that the number density does not monotonically increase with decreasing redshift, as would naively be expected from the buildup of metal-enriched circumgalactic gas with time. The number density over 4.9<z<5.7 is a factor of 1.7-4.1 lower (68% confidence) than that over 5.7<z<6.5, with a lower value at z<5.7 favored with 99% confidence. This decrease suggests that the fraction of metals in a low-ionization phase is larger at z~6 than at lower redshifts. Absorption from highly ionized metals traced by CIV is also weaker in higher-redshift OI systems, supporting this picture. The evolution of OI absorbers implies that metal-enriched circumgalactic gas at z~6 is undergoing an ionization transition driven by a strengthening ultraviolet background. This in turn suggests that the reionization of the diffuse intergalactic medium may still be ongoing at or only recently ended by this epoch.

Keywords
  1. intergalactic-medium
  2. quasars
  3. line-intensities
  4. redshifted
  5. spectroscopy
Bibliographic source Bibcode
2019ApJ...883..163B
See also HTML
https://cdsarc.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/cat/J/ApJ/883/163
IVOA Identifier IVOID
ivo://CDS.VizieR/J/ApJ/883/163
Document Object Identifer DOI
doi:10.26093/cds/vizier.18830163

Access

Web browser access HTML
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/883/163
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/883/163
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/VizieR-2?-source=J/ApJ/883/163
IVOA Table Access TAP
http://tapvizier.cds.unistra.fr/TAPVizieR/tap
Run SQL-like queries with TAP-enabled clients (e.g., TOPCAT).
IVOA Cone Search SCS
For use with a cone search client (e.g., TOPCAT).
http://vizier.cds.unistra.fr/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/883/163/table1?
https://vizier.iucaa.in/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/883/163/table1?
http://vizieridia.saao.ac.za/viz-bin/conesearch/J/ApJ/883/163/table1?

History

2021-04-12T09:44:48Z
Resource record created
2021-04-12T09:44:48Z
Created
2021-07-05T09:05:33Z
Updated

Contact

Name
CDS support team
Postal Address
CDS, Observatoire de Strasbourg, 11 rue de l'Universite, F-67000 Strasbourg, France
E-Mail
cds-question@unistra.fr