Lyman-$\alpha$ photons through rotating outflows
Abstract
Outflows and rotation are two ubiquitous kinematic features in the gas kinematics of galaxies. Here we introduce a semi-analytic model to quantify how rotating outflows impact the morphology of the Lyman- emission line. The model is contrasted against Monte Carlo radiative transfer simulations of outflowing gas with additional solid body rotation. We explore a range of neutral Hydrogen optical depth of , rotational velocity and outflow velocity . We find three consequences of rotation. First, it introduces a dependency with viewing angle; second it broadens the line and third it increases the flux at the line's center. For all viewing angles, the semi-analytic model reproduces the radiative transfer results for the line width and flux change at the line's center within a and precision for an optical depth of , respectively, and within and for an optical depth of . Using this model we also show that the peaks of integrated spectra taken from opposite sides of an edge-on rotating gas distribution should have a separation of . The semi-analytic model presented here is a convenient tool to introduce rotational kinematics as a post-processing step of idealized Monte Carlo simulations; it provides a framework to interpret \lya spectra in systems where rotation is expected or directly measured through kinematic maps.
Cite
@article{arxiv.1811.01266,
title = {Lyman-$\alpha$ photons through rotating outflows},
author = {Maria Camila Remolina-Gutiérrez and Jaime E. Forero-Romero},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1811.01266},
year = {2019}
}
Comments
9 pages, 7 figures. Submitted to MNRAS