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OATS-DAUT SEMINAR
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Speaker: Tae-Sun Kim (Astrophysical Institute Potsdam, Germany)

Title: The chemical enrichment of the intergalactic medium

Date: Wednesday, June 17th, 2009
Time: 12:00
Venue: Villa Bazzoni

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Abstract: With the advent of high-resolution, high signal-to-noise spectrographs on 10-meter class telescopes, a surprising discovery of triply ionised carbon associated with the low-density intergalactic medium (IGM) has revealed that the IGM has been enriched to 10^(-2.5) Solar. As heavy metals are produced by stars, which are bound in galaxies, the metals in the diffuse IGM provide an important fossil record of early star formation history and of the feedback of galactic matter into the ambient IGM. Several scenarios have been proposed to explain the enrichment of the IGM. Among these, the most promising candidate is a model where galactic-scale winds are blown by star-forming galaxies. I will review the current observational measures of the carbon abundance of the IGM at 0 < z < 6. In addition, I will present the relation between the neutral hydrogen column density and the triply ionised carbon column density, which could provide a possible evidence of galactic outflows as the IGM enrichment mechanism at 2 < z < 3.5 as well as an outflow velocity.
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contact: Valentina D'Odorico (OATS)