Welcome to the new version of CaltechAUTHORS. Login is currently restricted to library staff. If you notice any issues, please email coda@library.caltech.edu
Published March 21, 2015 | Published + Submitted
Journal Article Open

The impact of galactic feedback on the circumgalactic medium

Abstract

Galactic feedback strongly affects the way galactic environments are enriched. We examine this connection by performing a suite of cosmological hydrodynamic simulations, exploring a range of parameters based on the galaxy formation model developed in Vogelsberger et al. We examine the effects of AGN feedback, wind mass loading, wind specific energy, and wind metal-loading on the properties of the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxies with M_(halo) > 10^(11) M⊙. Note that while the V13 model was tuned to match observations including the stellar mass function, no explicit tuning was done for the CGM. The wind energy per unit outflow mass has the most significant effect on the CGM enrichment. High-energy winds launch metals far beyond the virial radius. AGN feedback also has a significant effect, but only at z < 3. We compare to high-redshift HI and CIV observations. All our simulations produce the observed number of Damped Lyman α Absorbers. At lower column density, several of our simulations produce enough Lyman Limit Systems (LLS) 100 kpc from the galaxy, but in all cases the LLS abundance falls off with distance faster than observations, with too few LLS at 200 kpc. Further, in all models the CIV abundance drops off too sharply with distance, with too little CIV 100–200 kpc from the galaxy. Higher energy wind models produce more extended CIV but also produce less stars, in tension with star formation rate density observations. This highlights the fact that circumgalactic observations are a strong constraint on galactic feedback models.

Additional Information

© 2015 The Authors. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of the Royal Astronomical Society. Accepted 2014 December 29. Received 2014 December 1; in original form 2014 September 18. First published online February 10, 2015. JS thanks Rob Simcoe, Kate Rubin, Laura Sales, Vicente Rodriguez-Gomez, and Dylan Nelson for their helpful comments. VS acknowledges support by the European Research Council under ERC-StG EXAGAL-308037. LH acknowledges support from NASA grant NNX12AC67G and NSF grant AST-1312095.

Attached Files

Published - MNRAS-2015-Suresh-895-909.pdf

Submitted - 1501.02267v1.pdf

Files

1501.02267v1.pdf
Files (3.6 MB)
Name Size Download all
md5:ffeb8984844bacf4d314416449c7ad38
2.1 MB Preview Download
md5:1bd44a176369fee0c407affef2e73782
1.5 MB Preview Download

Additional details

Created:
August 22, 2023
Modified:
October 23, 2023