Metal enrichment of the intergalactic medium

被引:110
作者
Gnedin, NY [1 ]
机构
[1] Univ Calif Berkeley, Dept Astron, Berkeley, CA 94720 USA
关键词
hydrodynamics; methods; numerical; galaxies; formation intergalactic medium; quasars; absorption lines; cosmology; theory;
D O I
10.1046/j.1365-8711.1998.01156.x
中图分类号
P1 [天文学];
学科分类号
0704 ;
摘要
I demonstrate by means of high-resolution cosmological simulations, which include modelling of a two-phase interstellar medium, that the dominant mechanism for transporting heavy elements from protogalaxies into the intergalactic medium (IGM) is the merger mechanism as discovered by Gnedin & Ostriker. Direct ejection of the interstellar gas by supernovae plays only a minor role in transporting metals into the IGM: for a realistic cosmological scenario only a small fraction of all metals in the IGM is delivered by the supernova-driven winds, while most of the metals in the IGM are transported by the merger mechanism. As a result, the metallicity distribution in the IGM is highly inhomogeneous, in agreement with studies of the QSO metal absorption systems, and the predicted metallicity distribution of Lyman alpha absorbers as a function of their column density is in excellent agreement with the observational data.
引用
收藏
页码:407 / 421
页数:15
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