Journal
ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
Volume 763, Issue 1, Pages -Publisher
IOP PUBLISHING LTD
DOI: 10.1088/0004-637X/763/1/37
Keywords
galaxies: halos; intergalactic medium; quasars: absorption lines; techniques: spectroscopic
Categories
Funding
- National Science Foundation Astronomy & Astrophysics Postdoctoral Fellowship [AST-1003139]
- MIT Department of Physics
- Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- National Science Foundation
- U.S. Department of Energy
- National Aeronautics and Space Administration
- Japanese Monbukagakusho
- Max Planck Society
- Higher Education Funding Council for England
- American Museum of Natural History
- Astrophysical Institute Potsdam
- University of Basel
- University of Cambridge
- Case Western Reserve University
- University of Chicago
- Drexel University
- Fermilab
- Institute for Advanced Study
- Japan Participation Group
- Johns Hopkins University
- Joint Institute for Nuclear Astrophysics
- Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology
- Korean Scientist Group
- Chinese Academy of Sciences (LAMOST)
- Los Alamos National Laboratory
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astronomy (MPIA)
- Max-Planck-Institute for Astrophysics (MPA)
- New Mexico State University
- Ohio State University
- University of Pittsburgh
- University of Portsmouth
- Princeton University
- United States Naval Observatory
- University of Washington
- Division Of Astronomical Sciences
- Direct For Mathematical & Physical Scien [1109115, 1003139] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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We have vastly increased the C IV statistics at intermediate redshift by surveying the thousands of quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) Data-Release 7. We visually verified over 16,000 C IV systems with 1.46 < z < 4.55-a sample size that renders Poisson error negligible. Detailed Monte Carlo simulations show that we are approximately 50% complete down to rest equivalent widths W-r approximate to 0.6 angstrom. We analyzed the sample as a whole and in 10 small redshift bins with approximately 1500 doublets each. The equivalent width frequency distributions f (W-r) were well modeled by an exponential, with little evolution in shape. In contrast with previous studies that modeled the frequency distribution as a single power law, the fitted exponential gives a finite mass density for the C IV ions. The comoving line density dN(C IV)/dX evolved smoothly with redshift, increasing by a factor of 2.37 +/- 0.09 from z = 4.55-1.96, then plateauing at dN(C IV)/dX approximate to 0.34 for z = 1.96-1.46. Comparing our SDSS sample with z < 1 (ultraviolet) and z > 5 (infrared) surveys, we see an approximately 10-fold increase in dN(C IV)/dX over z approximate to 6 -> 0, for W-r >= 0.6 angstrom. This suggests a monotonic and significant increase in the enrichment of gas outside galaxies over the 12 Gyr lifetime of the universe.
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