Cosmic Origins
Searching for answers about our universe and its origins

Diffuse Gas in Cosmic Ecosystems
Science Interest Group
(DGCE SIG)

Events: Seminar

Beyond DUVET: Revealing the Circumgalactic Medium with Direct Emission Mapping



January 25, 2024 – 4pm ET / 1pm PT
Nikki Nielsen, Swinburne University of Technology

Accretion and outflows are fundamental drivers of galaxy evolution, where these baryon cycle processes pass through and contribute to the massive gaseous reservoir known as the circumgalactic medium (CGM). Until recently, tracking these gas flows was done statistically with single pinpoint quasar sightlines through samples of galaxies. This makes it difficult to fully control for the galaxy properties that impact gas flows, such as mass, SFR, and location about the galaxy. Moreover, galaxy ISM properties are often marginalized over, where average galaxy-wide values are typically measured and which do not provide a complete picture of the galaxy's evolution. CGM science is now stepping into a new era of IFU observations that allow for directly mapping gas flows between the ISM and CGM in emission around individual galaxies, better controlling for galaxy properties. I will present ultra-deep Keck/KCWI emission mapping with sub-kiloparsec spatial resolution around nearby starbursting galaxies in the DUVET Survey. By mapping the ionized gas within and out to 30 kpc from the disk of our pilot galaxy, we identified a transition between the ISM and the CGM in the surface brightness and ionization conditions of the gas. Observations such as these are a key discovery area for galaxy evolution science in the next decade.

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