Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium Group
 
           
Welcome to the homepage of people involved in Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM) observative research. The group has been formed in 2000 and produced several papers on the WHIM subject. We have obtained so far (through imaging) the detection of the farthest Warm-Hot intergalactic gaseous filament predicted by several cosmological simulations of structure formation and a 3sigma detection of the OVII absorption line on the spectrum of a background blazar caused by the WHIM permeating the Sculptor Wall superstructure along the line of sight.

Imaging detections

So far we have been working on X-ray archival data (mainly imaging ROSAT pointings) and optical data (both from wide field cameras and catalogs). Our approach consist to find the soft X-ray structures in correspondance of an overdensity of galaxies in a relatively narrow range of redshift.

Main results

  • Contraints on the temperature evolution of the WHIM (from observations) with redshift (Zappacosta et al. 2005, A&A accepted; astro-ph/0501402)

  • Detection of an high redshift (z~0.78) optical superstructure with no signs of WHIM X-ray emission (Zappacosta et al. 2005, A&A accepted; astro-ph/0501402)

  • Detection of WHIM signature in the Sculptor supercluter at z~0.1 (Zappacosta et al. 2004, MNRAS accepted; astro-ph/0402575)

  • Detection of WHIM at z~0.45 (Zappacosta et al. 2002, A&A, 394, 7)

  • Measure and confirmation (z=0.40) of redshift of the WHIM detected in Zappacosta et al. 2002 through a spectroscopic survey of the galaxies belonging to the super-structure (Mannucci et al. A&A 2007, 468, 807)

Detections in QSO spectra

Detection (3 σ level) of the OVII absorption line at z=0.03 in the continuum grating spectrum of a background blazar (H2356-309). This line is produced by the WHIM permeating the Sculptor Wall which is a superstructure traced by the galaxy distribution which crosses the sighline to the blazar at z=0.03 which is exactly the redshift of the detected line. This result has been possible by observing the blazar both with XMM and Chandra satellites.

Main results

  • Oral contribution at the 4th UC Irvine Center for Cosmology Workshop: Galaxy Formation and Evolution as Revealed by Cosmic Gas, April 17-19, 2008, Irvine, California, USA
  • Oral contribution at the The Warm & Hot Universe workshop, May 7-9, 2008 Columbia University New York City, USA
Cover illustration A&A Vol. 394 No. 1 (October IV 2002)
Detection of a WHIM filament at z~0.45 (soft X-ray ROSAT PSPC map)

WHIM in the Sculptor Supercluster
Correlation between soft X-ray flux and galaxy distribution as a function of the gas temperature in the Sculptor supercluster. For the coolest temperature the correlation is significant. This indicates the presence of < 5×106K plasma related to the superstructure.
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Site maintained by Luca Zappacosta (zappacos_at_oats.inaf.it)