Related papers: How Did the IGM Become Enriched?
The enrichment of the Intra-Cluster Medium (ICM) with heavy elements is reviewed. There is now good observational evidence for enrichment including abundance ratios and metallicity distributions. Various processes involved in the enrichment…
Observations have established that the diffuse intergalactic medium (IGM) at z ~ 3 is enriched to ~0.1-1% solar metallicity and that the hot gas in large clusters of galaxies (ICM) is enriched to 1/3-1/2 solar metallicity at z=0. Metals in…
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…
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…
There are many processes that can transport gas from the galaxies to their environment and enrich the environment in this way with metals. These metal enrichment processes have a large influence on the evolution of both the galaxies and…
The presence of metals in hot cluster gas and in Ly-alpha absorbers, as well as the mass-metallicity relation of observed galaxies, suggest that galaxies lose a significant fraction of their metals to the intergalactic medium (IGM).…
We have examined the metal enrichment of the intergalactic medium (IGM) based on a galactic wind model. A galactic wind driven by supernovae brings metallic gas to the IGM but not so far beyond the gravitational potential. The expanding…
We investigate the evolution of the metallicity of the intergalactic medium (IGM) with particular emphasis on its spatial distribution. We propose that metal enrichment occurs as a two step process. First, supernova (SN) explosions eject…
Recent observations show the presence of metals in low-density Ly$\alpha$ forest absorbers at high redshift ($z\sim 3$). It remains still far from being clearly understood what mechanisms spread metals over Mpc scales from the parent…
We present numerical simulations of the dynamical and chemical evolution of galaxy clusters. X-ray spectra show that the intra-cluster medium contains a significant amount of metals. As heavy elements are produced in the stars of galaxies…
The bulk of cosmic matter resides in a dilute reservoir that fills the space between galaxies, the intergalactic medium (IGM). The history of this reservoir is intimately tied to the cosmic histories of structure formation, star formation,…
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…
As building blocks of dust, rocky planets, and even complex life, the chemical elements heavier than hydrogen (H) and helium (He) - called "metals" in astronomy - play an essential role in our Universe and its evolution. Up to Fe and Ni,…
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…
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) of galaxies serves as a record of the influences of outflows and accretion that drive the evolution of galaxies. Feedback from star formation drives outflows that carry mass and metals away from galaxies to…
By means of chemo-photometric models for galaxies of different morhological types, we have carried out a detailed study of the history of element production by spheroidal and dwarf irregular galaxies. Spheroidal galaxies suffer a strong and…
The evolution of the content of heavy elements in galaxies, the relative chemical abundances, their spatial distribution, and how these scale with various galactic properties, provide unique information on the galactic evolutionary…
I study the relationship between the spatial distribution of intergalactic metals and the masses and ejection energies of the sources that produced them. Over a wide range of models, metal enrichment is dominated by the smallest efficient…
The distribution of chemical elements in the hot intracluster medium (ICM) retains valuable information about the enrichment and star formation histories of galaxy clusters, and on the feedback and dynamical processes driving the evolution…
Intergalactic space is filled with a pervasive medium of ionized gas, the Intergalactic Medium (IGM). A residual neutral fraction is detected in the spectra of Quasi-Stellar Objects at both low and high redshifts, revealing a highly…