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FLASHLIGHT: Fluorescent Lyman-Alpha Survey of cosmic Hydrogen iLlumInated by hIGH-redshifT quasars.

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  25 July 2014

Fabrizio Arrigoni Battaia
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany email: [email protected]
J. F. Hennawi
Affiliation:
Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Königstuhl 17, D-69117 Heidelberg, Germany email: [email protected]
S. Cantalupo
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA University of California Observatories, Lick Observatory, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA
J. X. Prochaska
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, University of California, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA University of California Observatories, Lick Observatory, 1156 High Street, Santa Cruz, CA, 95064, USA
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Abstract

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The current galaxy formation paradigm postulates that a significant amount of gas accretes onto galaxies from the IGM in a cold T ~ 104K phase, and many have argued that this gas should be detectable in diffuse Lyα emission. However, so far, there are no convincing direct detections.

We are conducting a deep (down to 1σ ~ 5 − 10 × 10−19 erg s−1 cm−2 arcsec−2) and the first statistical survey matching the Lyα line around radio-quiet quasars at z ~ 2. By taking advantage of the boost in fluorescent Lyα emission due to the ionizing radiation emitted by a luminous QSO that, like a flashlight, can illuminate the hydrogen in its vicinity, we will be able to constrain some of the properties of the gas sorrounding z ~ 2 QSOs. In particular, with this unique dataset, we can conduct the first deep statistical census of the size, morphology, luminosity, frequency, and covering factor of Lyα emission around QSOs.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2014 

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