Turbulence in the intergalactic medium

Intergalactic Medium

Simulations of the Intergalactic Medium

I present a review by epoch of baryons in the intergalac-tic medium (IGM), from the first star until today. Recent observations indicate a protracted period of reionization, suggesting multiple populations of reionizers; detection of these z ∼ > 6 sources is a key goal that is now coming within reach. The optical Lyman alpha forest (2 ∼ < z ∼ < 4) is well-described by the Fluctuating Gunn-Peter...

Galactic Winds in the Intergalactic Medium

We have performed hydrodynamical simulations to investigate the effects of galactic winds on the high-redshift (z = 3) universe. Strong winds suppress the formation of low-mass galaxies significantly, and the metals carried by them produce C IV absorption lines with properties in reasonable agreement with observations. The winds have little effect on the statistics of the H I-absorption lines, ...

Temperature fluctuations in the intergalactic medium ⋆ †

The temperature of the low-density intergalactic medium is set by the balance between adiabatic cooling resulting from the expansion of the universe, and photo-heating by the UV-background. We have analysed the Lyα forest of eleven high-resolution quasar spectra using wavelets, and find strong evidence of a marked jump in the temperature at the mean density, T0, of 60 ± 14 per cent over the red...

Baryons in the Warm-hot Intergalactic Medium

Approximately 30− 40% of all baryons in the present day universe reside in a warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM), with temperatures between 10 < T < 10 K. This is a generic prediction from six hydrodynamic simulations of currently favored structure formation models having a wide variety of numerical methods, input physics, volumes, and spatial resolutions. Most of these warm-hot baryons reside...