The intergalactic medium thermal history at redshift z=1.7--3.2 from the Lyman alpha forest: a comparison of measurements using wavelets and the flux distribution

We investigate the thermal history of the intergalactic medium (IGM) in the redshift interval z=1.7--3.2 by studying the small-scale fluctuations in the Lyman alpha forest transmitted flux. We apply a wavelet filtering technique to eighteen high resolution quasar spectra obtained with the Ultraviolet and Visual Echelle Spectrograph (UVES), and compare these data to synthetic spectra drawn from a suite of hydrodynamical simulations in which the IGM thermal state and cosmological parameters are varied. From the wavelet analysis we obtain estimates of the IGM thermal state that are in good agreement with other recent, independent wavelet-based measurements. We also perform a reanalysis of the same data set using the Lyman alpha forest flux probability distribution function (PDF), which has previously been used to measure the IGM temperature-density relation. This provides an important consistency test for measurements of the IGM thermal state, as it enables a direct comparison of the constraints obtained using these two different methodologies. We find the constraints obtained from wavelets and the flux PDF are formally consistent with each other, although in agreement with previous studies, the flux PDF constraints favour an isothermal or inverted IGM temperature-density relation. We also perform a joint analysis by combining our wavelet and flux PDF measurements, constraining the IGM thermal state at z=2.1 to have a temperature at mean density of T0/[10^3 K]=17.3 +/- 1.9 and a power-law temperature-density relation exponent gamma=1.1 +/- 0.1 (1 sigma). Our results are consistent with previous observations that indicate there may be additional sources of heating in the IGM at z<4.Comment: 15 pages, 14 figures, matches version accepted for publication on MNRA

Tramp Novae Between Galaxies in the Fornax Cluster: Tracers of Intracluster Light

We report the results of a survey for novae in and between the galaxies of the Fornax cluster. Our survey provides strong evidence that intracluster novae exist and that they provide a useful, independent measure of the intracluster light in Fornax. We discovered six strong nova candidates in six distinct epochs spanning eleven years from 1993 to 2004. The data were taken with the 4m and the 1.5m telescopes at CTIO. The spatial distribution of the nova candidates is consistent with $\sim$16-41% of the total light in the cluster being in the intracluster light, based on the ratio of the number of novae we discovered in intracluster space over the total number of novae discovered plus a simple completeness correction factor. This estimate is consistent with independent measures of intracluster light in Fornax and Virgo using intracluster planetary nebulae. The accuracy of the intracluster light measurement improves with each survey epoch as more novae are discovered.Comment: 30 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal (Sep 9, 2004). Version 2: Added references. Full resolution versions of figures 1-7 and 10 can be found at http://astrowww.phys.uvic.ca/~neill/fnx

Shrinking of Cluster Ellipticals: a Tidal Stripping explanation and Implications for the Intra-Cluster Light

We look for evidence of tidal stripping in elliptical galaxies through the analysis of homogeneous CCD data corresponding to a sample of 228 elliptical galaxies belonging to 24 clusters of galaxies at $0.015<z<0.080$. We investigate departures from the standard magnitude-isophotal size relation, as a function of environmental (cluster-centric distance, local galaxy density) and structural (cluster velocity dispersion, Bautz-Morgan type) properties. We find that, for any particular galaxy luminosity, the ellipticals in the inner and denser regions of the clusters are about 5% smaller than those in the outer regions, which is in good agreement with the finding of Strom & Strom (1978) based on photographic photometry. The null hypothesis (ie., galaxy sizes are independent of the cluster-centric distance or density) is rejected at a significance level of better than 99.7%. Numericals models of Aguilar & White (1986) predict that tidal stripping can lead to changes in the whole structure of ellipticals producing shrinkage and brightening of the galaxy, qualitatively consistent with our measurements and also with the findings of Trujillo et al. (2002), that more centrally concentrated ellipticals populate denser regions. Our observational results can be interpreted as evidence for stripping of stars from ellipticals in the central/denser regions of clusters, contributing to the intra-cluster light observed in these structures.Comment: AJ Accepted, 15 pages, 9 figure

Hydrogen Clouds before Reionization: a Lognormal Model Approach

We study the baryonic gas clouds (the IGM) in the universe before the reionization with the lognormal model which is shown to be dynamcially legitimate in describing the fluctuation evolution in quasilinear as well as nonlinear regimes in recent years. The probability distribution function of the mass field in the LN model is long tailed and so plays an important role in rare events, such as the formation of the first generation of baryonic objects. We calculate density and velocity distributions of the IGM at very high spatial resolutions, and simulate the distributions at resolution of 0.15 kpc from z=7 to 15 in the LCDM cosmological model. We performed a statistics of the hydrogen clouds including column densities, clumping factors, sizes, masses, and spatial number density etc. One of our goals is to identify which hydrogen clouds are going to collapse. By inspecting the mass density profile and the velocity profile of clouds, we found that the velocity outflow significantly postpones the collapsing process in less massive clouds, in spite of their masses are larger than the Jeans mass. Consequently, only massive (> 10^5 M_sun) clouds can form objects at higher redshift, and less massive (10^4-10^5) collapsed objects are formed later. For example, although the mass fraction in clouds with sizes larger than the Jeans length is already larger than 1 at z=15, there is only a tiny fraction of mass (10^{-8}) in the clouds which are collapsed at that time. If all the ionizing photons, and the 10^{-2} metallicity observed at low redshift are produced by the first 1% mass of collapsed baryonic clouds, the majority of those first generation objects would not happen until z=10.Comment: Paper in AAStex, 12 figure

Detection of Extended He II Reionization in the Temperature Evolution of the Intergalactic Medium

We present new measurements of the temperature of the intergalactic medium (IGM) derived from the Lyman-alpha forest over 2.0 < z < 4.8. The small-scale structure in the forest of 61 high-resolution QSO spectra is quantified using a new statistic, the curvature, and the conversion to temperature calibrated using a suite of hydrodynamic simulations. At each redshift we focus on obtaining the temperature at an optimal overdensity probed by the Lyman-alpha forest, T(Delta), where the temperature is nearly a one-to-one function of the curvature regardless of the slope of the temperature-density relation. The median 2-sigma statistical uncertainty in these measurements is 8 per cent, though there may be comparable systematic errors due to the unknown amount of Jeans smoothing in the IGM. We use our T(Delta) results to infer the temperature at the mean density, T0. Even for a maximally steep temperature-density relation, T0 must increase from ~8000 K at z ~ 4.4 to >~12000 K at z ~ 2.8. This increase is not consistent with the monotonic decline in T0 expected in the absence of He II reionization. We therefore interpret the observed rise in temperature as evidence of He II reionization beginning at z >~ 4.4. The evolution of T0 is consistent with an end to He II reionization at z ~ 3, as suggested by opacity measurements of the He II Lyman-alpha forest, although the redshift at which T0 peaks will depend somewhat on the evolution of the temperature-density relation. These new temperature measurements suggest that the heat input due to the reionization of He II dominates the thermal balance of the IGM over an extended period with Delta_z >~ 1.Comment: 19 pages, 15 figures, accepted to MNRA

Resolving the high redshift Lyman-alpha forest in smoothed particle hydrodynamics simulations

We use a large set of cosmological smoothed particle hydrodynamics (SPH) simulations to examine the effect of mass resolution and box size on synthetic Lya forest spectra at 2 \leq z \leq 5. The mass resolution requirements for the convergence of the mean Lya flux and flux power spectrum at z=5 are significantly stricter than at lower redshift. This is because transmission in the high redshift Lya forest is primarily due to underdense regions in the intergalactic medium (IGM), and these are less well resolved compared to the moderately overdense regions which dominate the Lya forest opacity at z~2-3. We further find that the gas density distribution in our simulations differs significantly from previous results in the literature at large overdensities (\Delta>10). We conclude that studies of the Lya forest at z=5 using SPH simulations require a gas particle mass of M_gas \leq 2x10^5 M_sol/h, which is >8 times the value required at z=2. A box size of at least 40 Mpc/h is preferable at all redshifts.Comment: 5 pages, 5 figures, 2 tables, accepted by MNRA

Investigation for the puzzling abundance pattern of the neutron-capture elements in the ultra metal-poor star: CS 30322-023

The s-enhanced and very metal-poor star CS 30322-023 shows a puzzling abundance pattern of the neutron-capture elements, i.e. several neutron-capture elements such as Ba, Pb etc. show enhancement, but other neutron-capture elements such as Sr, Eu etc. exhibit deficient with respect to iron. The study to this sample star could make people gain a better understanding of s- and r-process nucleosynthesis at low metallicity. Using a parametric model, we find that the abundance pattern of the neutron-capture elements could be best explained by a star that was polluted by an AGB star and the CS 30322-023 binary system formed in a molecular cloud which had never been polluted by r-process material. The lack of r-process material also indicates that the AGB companion cannot have undergone a type-1.5 supernova, and thus must have had an initial mass below 4.0M$_\odot$, while the strong N overabundance and the absence of a strong C overabundance indicate that the companion's initial mass was larger than 2.0M$_\odot$. The smaller s-process component coefficient of this star illustrates that there is less accreted material of this star from the AGB companion, and the sample star should be formed in the binary system with larger initial orbital separation where the accretion-induced collapse (AIC) mechanism can not work.Comment: 13 pages, 2 figure