The Circumgalactic Medium of Extreme Emission Line Galaxies at z∼2: Resolved Spectroscopy and Radiative Transfer Modeling of Spatially Extended Lyα Emission in the KBSS-KCWI Survey

Abstract

The resonantly scattered Ly α line illuminates the extended halos of neutral hydrogen in the circumgalactic medium of galaxies. We present integral field Keck Cosmic Web Imager observations of double-peaked, spatially extended Ly α emission in 12 relatively low-mass ( M _⋆ ∼ 10 ^9 M _⊙ ) z ∼ 2 galaxies characterized by extreme nebular emission lines. Using individual spaxels and small bins as well as radially binned profiles of larger regions, we find that for most objects in the sample the Ly α blue-to-red peak ratio increases, the peak separation decreases, and the fraction of flux emerging at line center increases with radius. We use new radiative transfer simulations to model each galaxy with a clumpy, multiphase outflow with radially varying outflow velocity, and self-consistently apply the same velocity model to the low-ionization interstellar absorption lines. These models reproduce the trends of peak ratio, peak separation, and trough depth with radius, and broadly reconcile outflow velocities inferred from Ly α and absorption lines. The galaxies in our sample are well-described by a model in which neutral, outflowing clumps are embedded in a hotter, more highly ionized inter-clump medium (ICM), whose residual neutral content produces absorption at the systemic redshift. The peak ratio, peak separation, and trough flux fraction are primarily governed by the line-of-sight component of the outflow velocity, the H i column density, and the residual neutral density in the ICM respectively. The azimuthal asymmetries in the line profile further suggest nonradial gas motions at large radii and variations in the H i column density in the outer halos.

Keywords

• Galaxy evolution
• High-redshift galaxies
• Circumgalactic medium
• Galaxy spectroscopy
• Radiative transfer simulations