A MUSE source-blind survey for emission from the circumgalactic medium.
basic_science · Level V
Where this comes from
- Record sourced from PubMed, PMID 39565863.
- Also identified by DOI 10.1126/sciadv.adp8629 and PMC identifier 11801050.
- Licence recorded as CC BY-NC.
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Abstract
The recent detection of optical emission lines from the circumgalactic medium (CGM) in combined, large samples of low-redshift, normal galaxy spectra hints at the potential to map the cool (∼10<sup>4</sup> kelvin) CGM in individual, representative galaxies. Using archival data from a forefront instrument (MUSE) on the VLT, we present a source-blind, wide-redshift-range (<i>z</i> ∼ 0 to 5) narrowband imaging survey for CGM emission. Our detected, resolved emission line sources are cataloged and include a 30-kiloparsec-wide Hα source likely tracing the CGM of a low-mass galaxy (stellar mass ∼ 10<sup>8.78±0.42</sup> solar mass) at <i>z</i> = 0.1723, a 60-kiloparsec-wide Ly α structure associated with a galaxy at <i>z</i> = 3.9076, and a 130-kiloparsec (∼<i>r<sub>vir</sub></i>)-wide [O II] feature revealing an interaction between a galaxy pair at <i>z</i> = 1.2480. The Hα velocity field for the low-mass galaxy suggests that the CGM is more chaotic or turbulent than the galaxy disk, while that for the interacting galaxies shows large-scale (∼50 kiloparsec) coherent motions.