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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics
Evidence For Correlated Titanium And Deuterium Depletion In The Galactic Ism, Jason X. Prochaska, Todd M. Tripp, Christopher Howk
Evidence For Correlated Titanium And Deuterium Depletion In The Galactic Ism, Jason X. Prochaska, Todd M. Tripp, Christopher Howk
Todd M. Tripp
Current measurements indicate that the deuterium abundance in diffuse interstellar gas varies spatially by a factor of ~4 among sightlines extending beyond the Local Bubble. One plausible explanation for the scatter is the variable depletion of D onto dust grains. To test this scenario, we have obtained high signal-to-noise, high resolution profiles of the refractory ion Ti II along seven Galactic sightlines with D/H ranging from 0.65 to 2.1 × 10−5. These measurements, acquired with the recently upgraded Keck/HIRES spectrometer, indicate a correlation between Ti/H and D/H at the > 95% c.l. Therefore, our observations support the interpretation that D/H scatter …
The O Vi Absorbers Toward Pg 0953+415: High-Metallicity, Cosmic-Web Gas Far From Luminous Galaxies, Todd M. Tripp, Bastien Aracil, David V. Bowen, Edward B. Jenkins
The O Vi Absorbers Toward Pg 0953+415: High-Metallicity, Cosmic-Web Gas Far From Luminous Galaxies, Todd M. Tripp, Bastien Aracil, David V. Bowen, Edward B. Jenkins
Todd M. Tripp
The spectrum of the low-redshift QSO PG0953+415 shows two strong, intervening O VI absorption systems. To study the nature of these absorbers, we have used the Gemini Multiobject Spectrograph to conduct a deep spectroscopic galaxy redshift survey in the 5' x 5' field centered on the QSO. This survey is fully complete for r' < 19.7 and is 73% complete for r' < 21.0. We find three galaxies at the redshift of the higher-z O VI system (z = 0.14232) including a galaxy at projected distance rho = 155 kpc. We find no galaxies in the Gemini field at the redshift of the lower-z O VI absorber (z = 0.06807), which indicates that the nearest galaxy is more than 195 kpc away or has L < 0.04 L*. Previous shallower surveys covering a larger field have shown that the z = 0.06807 O VI absorber is affiliated with a group/filament of galaxies, but the nearest known galaxy has rho = 736 kpc. The z = 0.06807 absorber is notable for several reasons. The absorption profiles reveal simple kinematics indicative of quiescent material. The H I line widths and good alignment of the H I and metal lines favor photoionization and, moreover, the column density ratios imply a high metallicity: [M/H] = -0.3 +/- 0.12. The z = 0.14232 O VI system is more complex and less constrained but also indicates a relatively high metallicity. Using galaxy redshifts from SDSS, we show that both of the PG0953+415 O VI absorbers are located in large-scale filaments of the cosmic web. Evidently, some regions of the web filaments are highly metal enriched. We discuss the origin of the high-metallicity gas and suggest that the enrichment might have occurred long ago (at high z).