CONSTRAINTS ON THE UNIVERSAL C IV MASS DENSITY AT z ~ 6 FROM EARLY IR SPECTRA OBTAINED WITH THE MAGELLAN FIRE SPECTOGRAPH
Name
Simcoe_Constraints on.pdf
Size
862.36 KB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
fec6a64744e3d59074f199c959761987
Author(s)
Simcoe, Robert A.
Cooksey, Kathy
Matejek, Michael Scott
Burgasser, Adam J.
Bochanski, John J.
Lovegrove, Elizabeth
Bernstein, Rebecca A.
Pipher, Judith L.
Forrest, William J.
McMurtry, Craig
Alternative Title
CONSTRAINTS ON THE UNIVERSAL C IV MASS DENSITY AT z ~ 6 FROM EARLY INFRARED SPECTRA OBTAINED WITH THE MAGELLAN FIRE SPECTOGRAPH
Date Issued
November 2011
Journal
The Astrophysical Journal
Publisher
IOP Publishing
Citation
Simcoe, Robert A., Kathy L. Cooksey, Michael Matejek, Adam J. Burgasser, John Bochanski, Elizabeth Lovegrove, Rebecca A. Bernstein, et al. “CONSTRAINTS ON THE UNIVERSAL C IV MASS DENSITY AT z ∼ 6 FROM EARLY INFRARED SPECTRA OBTAINED WITH THE MAGELLAN FIRE SPECTROGRAPH.” The Astrophysical Journal 743, no. 1 (November 18, 2011): 21.
Version
Original manuscript
Abstract
We present a new determination of the intergalactic C IV mass density at 4.3 < z < 6.3. Our constraints are derived from high signal-to-noise spectra of seven quasars at z > 5.8 obtained with the newly commissioned Folded-Port Infrared Echellette (FIRE) spectrograph on the Magellan Baade telescope, coupled with six observations of northern objects taken from the literature. We confirm the presence of a downturn in the C IV abundance at (z) = 5.66 by a factor of 4.1 relative to its value at (z) = 4.96, as measured in the same sight lines. In the FIRE sample, a strong system previously reported in the literature as C IV at z = 5.82 is re-identified as Mg II at z = 2.78, leading to a substantial downward revision in Ω[subscript C IV] for these prior studies. Additionally, we confirm the presence of at least two systems with low-ionization C II, Si II, and O I absorption but relatively weak signal from C IV. The latter systems may be of interest if the downward trend in Ω[subscript C IV] at high redshift is driven in part by ionization effects.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
Terms of Use
Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike
Persistent DSpace Link
DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637x/743/1/21
