TY - JOUR
T1 - What can the distribution of intergalactic metals tell us about the history of cosmological enrichment?
AU - Scannapieco, Evan
N1 - Funding Information:
I thank Andrea Ferrara, Pavel Kovtun, Crystal Martin, Piero Madau, Michael Rauch, and an anonymous referee for helpful comments and useful conversations. This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under grant PHY99-07949.
PY - 2005/5/1
Y1 - 2005/5/1
N2 - I study the relationship between the spatial distribution of intergalactic metals and the masses and ejection energies of the sources that produced them. Over a wide range of models, metal enrichment is dominated by the smallest efficient sources, as the enriched volume scales roughly as E3/5 ∼ M3/5 while the number density of sources goes as ∼M -1. In all cases, the earliest sources have the biggest impact, because fixed comoving distances correspond to smaller physical distances at higher redshifts. This means that most of the enriched volume is found around rare peaks, and intergalactic metals are naturally highly clustered. Furthermore, this clustering is so strong as to lead to a large overlap between individual bubbles. Thus the typical radius of enriched z ∼ 3 regions should be interpreted as a constraint on groupings of sources rather than the ejection radius of a typical source. Similarly, the clustering of enriched regions should be taken as a measurement of source bias rather than mass.
AB - I study the relationship between the spatial distribution of intergalactic metals and the masses and ejection energies of the sources that produced them. Over a wide range of models, metal enrichment is dominated by the smallest efficient sources, as the enriched volume scales roughly as E3/5 ∼ M3/5 while the number density of sources goes as ∼M -1. In all cases, the earliest sources have the biggest impact, because fixed comoving distances correspond to smaller physical distances at higher redshifts. This means that most of the enriched volume is found around rare peaks, and intergalactic metals are naturally highly clustered. Furthermore, this clustering is so strong as to lead to a large overlap between individual bubbles. Thus the typical radius of enriched z ∼ 3 regions should be interpreted as a constraint on groupings of sources rather than the ejection radius of a typical source. Similarly, the clustering of enriched regions should be taken as a measurement of source bias rather than mass.
KW - Galaxies: evolution
KW - Intergalactic medium
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U2 - 10.1086/430306
DO - 10.1086/430306
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:20344389481
VL - 624
SP - L1-L4
JO - Astrophysical Journal
JF - Astrophysical Journal
SN - 0004-637X
IS - 1 II
ER -