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Abstract Lyαline profiles are a powerful probe of interstellar medium (ISM) structure, outflow speed, and Lyman-continuum escape fraction. In this paper, we present the Lyαline profiles of the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) Legacy Archive Spectroscopic SurveY, a sample rich in spectroscopic analogs of reionization-era galaxies. A large fraction of the spectra show a complex profile, consisting of a double-peaked Lyαemission profile in the bottom of a damped, Lyαabsorption trough. Such profiles reveal an inhomogeneous ISM. We successfully fit the damped Lyαabsorption and the Lyαemission profiles separately, but with complementary covering factors, a surprising result because this approach requires no Lyαexchange between high-NHiand low-NHipaths. The combined distribution of column densities is qualitatively similar to the bimodal distributions observed in numerical simulations. We find an inverse relation between Lyαpeak separation and the [Oiii]/[Oii] flux ratio, confirming that the covering fraction of Lyman-continuum-thin sightlines increases as the Lyαpeak separation decreases. We combine measurements of Lyαpeak separation and Lyαred peak asymmetry in a diagnostic diagram, which identifies six Lyman-continuum leakers in the COS Legacy Archive Spectrocopy SurveY (CLASSY) sample. We find a strong correlation between the Lyαtrough velocity and the outflow velocity measured from interstellar absorption lines. We argue that greater vignetting of the blueshifted Lyαpeak, relative to the redshifted peak, is the source of the well-known discrepancy between shell-model parameters and directly measured outflow properties. The CLASSY sample illustrates how scattering of Lyαphotons outside the spectroscopic aperture reshapes Lyαprofiles because the distances to these compact starbursts span a large range.
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The Circumgalactic Medium of Extreme Emission Line Galaxies at z∼2: Resolved Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer Modeling of Spatially Extended Lyα Emission in the KBSS-KCWI Survey*
Abstract The resonantly scattered Lyαline illuminates the extended halos of neutral hydrogen in the circumgalactic medium of galaxies. We present integral field Keck Cosmic Web Imager observations of double-peaked, spatially extended Lyαemission in 12 relatively low-mass (M⋆∼ 109M⊙)z∼ 2 galaxies characterized by extreme nebular emission lines. Using individual spaxels and small bins as well as radially binned profiles of larger regions, we find that for most objects in the sample the Lyαblue-to-red peak ratio increases, the peak separation decreases, and the fraction of flux emerging at line center increases with radius. We use new radiative transfer simulations to model each galaxy with a clumpy, multiphase outflow with radially varying outflow velocity, and self-consistently apply the same velocity model to the low-ionization interstellar absorption lines. These models reproduce the trends of peak ratio, peak separation, and trough depth with radius, and broadly reconcile outflow velocities inferred from Lyαand absorption lines. The galaxies in our sample are well-described by a model in which neutral, outflowing clumps are embedded in a hotter, more highly ionized inter-clump medium (ICM), whose residual neutral content produces absorption at the systemic redshift. The peak ratio, peak separation, and trough flux fraction are primarily governed by the line-of-sight component of the outflow velocity, the Hicolumn density, and the residual neutral density in the ICM respectively. The azimuthal asymmetries in the line profile further suggest nonradial gas motions at large radii and variations in the Hicolumn density in the outer halos.
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- Award ID(s):
- 1909198
- PAR ID:
- 10439933
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.3847
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- The Astrophysical Journal
- Volume:
- 953
- Issue:
- 1
- ISSN:
- 0004-637X
- Format(s):
- Medium: X Size: Article No. 118
- Size(s):
- Article No. 118
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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