The impact of starbursts on the circumgalactic medium
Abstract
We present a study exploring the impact of a starburst on the properties of the surrounding circumgalactic medium (CGM): gas located beyond the galaxy's stellar body and extending out to the virial radius (∼ 200 kpc). We obtained ultraviolet spectroscopic data from the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) probing the CGM of 20 low-redshift foreground galaxies using background QSOs. Our sample consists of starburst and control galaxies. The latter comprises normal star-forming and passive galaxies with similar stellar masses and impact parameters as the starbursts. We used optical spectra from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to estimate the properties of the starbursts, inferring average ages of ∼ 200 Myr and burst fractions involving ∼ 10% of their stellar mass. The COS data reveal highly ionized gas traced by C IV in 80%(4/5) of the starburst and in 17%(2/12) of the control sample. The two control galaxies with C IV absorbers differed from the four starbursts in showing multiple low-ionization transitions and strong saturated Ly alpha lines. They therefore appear to be physically different systems. We show that the C IV absorbers in the starburst CGM represent a significant baryon repository. The high detection rate of this highly ionized material in the starbursts suggests that starburst-driven winds can affect the CGM out to radii as large as 200 kpc. This is plausible given the inferred properties of the starbursts and the known properties of starburst-driven winds. This would represent the first direct observational evidence of local starbursts impacting the bulk of their gaseous halos, and as such provides new evidence of the importance of this kind of feedback in the evolution of galaxies.
Citation
Borthakur , S , Heckman , T , Strickland , D , Wild , V & Schiminovich , D 2013 , ' The impact of starbursts on the circumgalactic medium ' , Astrophysical Journal , vol. 768 , no. 1 , 18 . https://doi.org/10.1088/0004-637X/768/1/18
Publication
Astrophysical Journal
Status
Peer reviewed
ISSN
0004-637XType
Journal article
Collections
Items in the St Andrews Research Repository are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.
Related items
Showing items related by title, author, creator and subject.
-
SDSS-IV MaNGA: How the stellar populations of passive central galaxies depend on stellar and halo mass
Oyarzún, Grecco A.; Bundy, Kevin; Westfall, Kyle B.; Tinker, Jeremy L.; Belfiore, Francesco; Argudo-Fernández, Maria; Zheng, Zheng; Conroy, Charlie; Masters, Karen L.; Wake, David; Law, David R.; McDermid, Richard M.; Aragón-Salamanca, Alfonso; Parikh, Taniya; Yan, Renbin; Bershady, Matthew; Sánchez, Sebastián F.; Andrews, Brett H.; Fernández-Trincado, José G.; Lane, Richard R.; Bizyaev, D.; Boardman, Nicholas Fraser; Lacerna, Ivan; Brownstein, J. R.; Drory, Niv; Zhang, Kai (2022-07-06) - Journal articleWe analyze spatially resolved and co-added SDSS-IV MaNGA spectra with signal-to-noise ratio ∼100 from 2200 passive central galaxies (z ∼ 0.05) to understand how central galaxy assembly depends on stellar mass (M*) and halo ... -
Secular-and merger-built bulges in barred galaxies
Mendez Abreu, Jairo; Debattista, V. P.; Corsini, E. M.; Aguerri, J. A. L. (2014-12) - Journal articleContext. Historically, galaxy bulges were thought to be single-component objects at the center of galaxies. However, this picture is now questioned since different bulge types with different formation paths, namely classical ... -
Galaxy And Mass Assembly (GAMA) : galaxy close pairs, mergers and the future fate of stellar mass
Robotham, A. S. G.; Driver, S. P.; Davies, L. J. M.; Hopkins, A. M.; Baldry, I. K.; Agius, N. K.; Bauer, A. E.; Bland-Hawthorn, J.; Brough, S.; Brown, M. J. I.; Cluver, M.; De Propris, R.; Drinkwater, M. J.; Holwerda, B. W.; Kelvin, L. S.; Lara-Lopez, M. A.; Liske, J.; Lopez-Sanchez, A. R.; Loveday, J.; Mahajan, S.; McNaught-Roberts, T.; Moffett, A.; Norberg, P.; Obreschkow, D.; Owers, M. S.; Penny, S. J.; Pimbblet, K.; Prescott, M.; Taylor, E. N.; van Kampen, E.; Wilkins, S. M. (2014-11-11) - Journal articleWe use a highly complete subset of the Galaxy And Mass Assembly II (GAMA-II) redshift sample to fully describe the stellar mass dependence of close pairs and mergers between 10(8) and 10(12)M(circle dot). Using the analytic ...