Related papers: Observational Tests of Intergalactic Enrichment Mo…
The enrichment of the intergalactic medium (IGM) with heavy elements provides us with a record of past star formation and with an opportunity to study the interactions between galaxies and their environments. We summarize current data…
Supernova-driven outflows from early galaxies may have had a large impact on the kinetic and chemical structure of the intergalactic medium (IGM). We use three-dimensional Monte Carlo cosmological realizations of a simple linear peaks model…
We study the $z\approx3.5$ intergalactic medium (IGM) by comparing new, high-quality absorption spectra of eight QSOs with $\langle z_{\rm QSO} \rangle=3.75$, to virtual observations of the EAGLE cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We…
The enrichment of the intergalactic medium with heavy elements is a process that lies at the nexus of poorly-understood aspects of physical cosmology. We review current understanding of the processes that may remove metals from galaxies,…
Studies of absorption spectra of high-z QSOs have revealed that the intergalactic medium at z ~ 2-3 is enriched to ~ 0.1%-1% solar for gas densities more than a few times the mean cosmic density, but have not yet produced an accurate…
Observations of quasar absorption line systems reveal that the z=3 intergalactic medium (IGM) is polluted by heavy elements down to HI optical depths tau_HI<<10. What is not yet clear, however, is what fraction of the volume needs to be…
We have studied the abundance of oxygen in the IGM by analyzing OVI, CIV, SiIV, and HI pixel optical depths derived from a set of high-quality VLT and Keck spectra of 17 QSOs at 2.1 < z < 3.6. Comparing OVI and CIV optical depth ratios to…
We investigate models of self-consistent chemical enrichment of the intergalactic medium (IGM) from z=6 to 1.5, based on hydrodynamic simulations of structure formation that incorporate galactic outflows. Our main result is that outflow…
This paper presents ionization-corrected measurements of the carbon abundance in intergalactic gas at 4.0 < z < 4.5, using spectra of three bright quasars obtained with the MIKE spectrograph on Magellan. By measuring the CIV strength in a…
Recent stellar chemical abundance measurements of a handful of $z\sim2$ quiescent galaxies have suggested these galaxies exhibit a remarkably strong $\alpha$-enhancement compared to their local and intermediate redshift counterparts. This…
The galaxy-IGM part of the Lyman-break survey currently consists of measured redshifts for more than 1000 galaxies with redshift 1.5<z<3.5 along the sightlines to 25 background QSOs. One of the goals of the survey was to measure the…
The study of the metal enrichment of the intra-cluster and inter-galactic media (ICM and IGM) represents a direct means to reconstruct the past history of star formation, the role of feedback processes and the gas-dynamical processes which…
Astrochemistry has been widely developed as a power tool to probe physical properties of the interstellar medium (ISM) in various conditions of the Milky Way (MW) Galaxy, and in near and distant galaxies. Most current studies conventionally…
Our unified chemical and spectrophotometric evolution code allows to simultaneously study the ISM abundances of a series of elements and the spectral properties of the stellar population in our model galaxies. We use stellar evolutionary…
The abundances of metals in the intergalactic medium (IGM) can be used to constrain the amount of star formation at high redshift and the spectral shape of the ionizing background radiation. For both purposes it is essential to measure the…
We publicly release a new sample of $34$ medium resolution quasar spectra at $5.77\leq z_{\rm em}\leq6.54$ observed with the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager (ESI) on the Keck telescope. This quasar sample represents an ideal laboratory…
To underscore the value of high spectral resolution for the study of low-z QSO absorption lines, we briefly present Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph echelle data that demonstrate how increased resolution leads to dramatic improvement in…
The interstellar medium (ISM) in starburst galaxies contains plenty of chemical elements synthesised by core-collapse supernova explosions. By measuring the abundances of these metals, we can study the chemical enrichment within galaxies…
The comparison of chemical abundances in the neutral gas of galaxies to photospheric abundances of old and young stars, ionized gas abundances, and abundances in galactic halos can trace the chemical enrichment of the universe through…
We use a suite of cosmological, hydrodynamical simulations to investigate the chemical enrichment history of the Universe. Specifically, we trace the origin of the metals back in time to investigate when various gas phases were enriched and…