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Hunting for the missing baryons in the warm-hot intergalactic medium

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  06 October 2005

P. Richter
Affiliation:
IAEF, Bonn University, Germany, email: prichter@astro.uni-bonn.de
B. D. Savage
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, University of Wisconsin-Madison, USA
T. M. Tripp
Affiliation:
Department of Astronomy, University of Massachusetts, USA
K. R. Sembach
Affiliation:
Space Telescope Science Institute, USA
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Abstract

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We discuss the physical properties and the baryonic content of the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM) at low redshifts. Cosmological simulations predict that the WHIM contains a large fraction of the baryons at $z=0$ in the form of highly-ionised gas at temperatures between $10^5$ and $10^7$ K. Using high-resolution ultraviolet spectra obtained with the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph (STIS) and the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) we have studied the WHIM at low redshifts by searching for intervening O VI and thermally broadened Lyman $\alpha$ (BLA) absorption toward a number of quasars and active galactic nuclei (AGNs). Our measurements imply cosmological mass densities of $\Omega_b$(O VI)$\geq0.0022 h_{75}^{-1}$ and $\Omega_{b}$(BLA)$\geq0.0035\,h_{75}^{-1}$. Our results suggest that the WHIM at low $z$ contains more baryonic mass than stars and gas in galaxies.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
© 2005 International Astronomical Union