Constraining quasar host halo mass with circumgalactic medium kinematics

Paper Title:

Resolving the physics of Quasar Ly$α$ Nebulae (RePhyNe): I. Constraining Quasar host halo masses through Circumgalactic Medium kinematics

Published on:

4 September 2023

Primary Category:

Astrophysics of Galaxies

Paper Authors:

Stephanie de Beer,

Sebastiano Cantalupo,

Andrea Travascio,

Gabriele Pezzulli,

Marta Galbiati,

Matteo Fossati,

Michele Fumagalli,

Titouan Lazeyras,

Antonio Pensabene,

Tom Theuns,

Weichen Wang

Bullets

Key Details

•

New method to estimate quasar host halo masses using gas kinematics

•

Velocity dispersion ratio versus radius is linked to halo mass and redshift in simulations

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Applied to 37 observed quasar nebulae, halo masses around 10^{12.2} solar masses obtained

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Lower than some clustering measurements, resolves tension, implications for gas properties

Explore the topics in this paper

dark matter halos

lyman-alpha nebulae

mass estimation

quasars

redshift

AI generated summary

Constraining quasar host halo mass with circumgalactic medium kinematics

This paper develops a new method to estimate the mass of dark matter halos hosting bright quasars at high redshift. By analyzing mock observations from cosmological simulations, a relation is found between the ratio of velocity dispersions at different radii and halo mass. This relation is applied to real observations of extended Lyman-alpha nebulae around 37 quasars at redshift 3-4.5 from the MUSE instrument. The analysis yields halo mass estimates around 10^{12.2} solar masses, lower than some previous clustering measurements, with implications for our understanding of gas properties in quasar environments.