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Title: Shadow of colossus: A z = 2.44 galaxy protocluster detected in 3D Lyα forest tomographic mapping of the cosmos field

Journal Article · · The Astrophysical Journal (Online)
ORCiD logo [1];  [1]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [3];  [4];  [4];  [5];  [6]; ORCiD logo [2]; ORCiD logo [7];  [4]; ORCiD logo [8]; ORCiD logo [9]
  1. Max Planck Inst. for Astronomy, Heidelberg (Germany)
  2. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Astronomy; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  3. Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States). Dept. of Astronomy and Astrophysics; Univ. of California Observatories, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
  4. Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  5. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States). Dept. of Physics and Astronomy
  6. Univ. of Tokyo (Japan). Kavli Inst. for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (IPMU)
  7. Aix-Marseille Univ., Marseille (France)
  8. Max Planck Inst. for Extraterrestrial Physics, Munich (Germany)
  9. National Inst. of Astrophysics (INAF), Bologna (Italy). Astronomical Observatory of Bologna
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By using moderate-resolution optical spectra from 58 background Lyman-break galaxies and quasars at z ~ 2.3-3 within a 11'.5 × 13'.5 area of the COSMOS field (~1200 deg -2 projected area density or ~2.4 h -1 Mpc mean transverse separation), we reconstruct a 3D tomographic map of the foreground Lyα forest absorption at 2.2 < z < 2.5 with an effective smoothing scale of ϵ3D ≈ 2.5 h -1 Mpc comoving. Comparing with 61 coeval galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts in the same volume, we find that the galaxy positions are clearly biased toward regions with enhanced intergalactic medium (IGM) absorption in the tomographic map. Here, we find an extended IGM overdensity with deep absorption troughs at z = 2.45 associated with a recently discovered galaxy protocluster at the same redshift. Based on simulations matched to our data, we estimate the enclosed dark matter mass within this IGM overdensity to be Mdm (z= 2.45) = (1.1 ± 0.6) ×10 14 h -1 M ⊙ , and argue based on this mass and absorption strength that it will form at least one z ~ 0 galaxy cluster with M(z = 0) = (3 ± 1.5) ×10 14h-1 M⊙ , although its elongated nature suggests that it will likely collapse into two separate clusters. We also point out a compact overdensity of six MOSDEF galaxies at z = 2.30 within a r ~ 1 h -1 Mpc radius and Δz ~ 0.006, which does not appear to have a large associated IGM overdensity. Our results demonstrate the potential of Lyα forest tomography on larger volumes to study galaxy properties as a function of environment, as well as revealing the large-scale IGM overdensities associated with protoclusters or other features of large-scale structure.

Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC), Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1379068
Journal Information:
The Astrophysical Journal (Online), Vol. 817, Issue 2; ISSN 1538-4357
Publisher:
Institute of Physics (IOP)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English
Citation Metrics:
Cited by: 23 works
Citation information provided by
Web of Science

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Cited By (18)

The progeny of a cosmic titan: a massive multi-component proto-supercluster in formation at z = 2.45 in VUDS journal November 2018
Simulating MOS science on the ELT: Ly α forest tomography journal December 2019
MAHALO Deep Cluster Survey II. Characterizing massive forming galaxies in the Spiderweb protocluster at z = 2.2 journal September 2018
Bayesian cosmic density field inference from redshift space dark matter maps journal July 2019
Searching for the shadows of giants: characterizing protoclusters with line of sight Lyman-α absorption journal September 2019
Galaxies Probing Galaxies in PRIMUS. I. Sample, Spectroscopy, and Characteristics of the $z\sim 0.5$ Mg II–absorbing Circumgalactic Medium journal January 2018
Understanding Large-scale Structure in the SSA22 Protocluster Region Using Cosmological Simulations journal January 2018
A Fundamental Test for Galaxy Formation Models: Matching the Lyman- α Absorption Profiles of Galactic Halos Over Three Decades in Distance journal May 2018
Evidence for Large-scale Fluctuations in the Metagalactic Ionizing Background Near Redshift Six journal August 2018
Galaxies Probing Galaxies in PRIMUS. II. The Coherence Scale of the Cool Circumgalactic Medium journal December 2018
Confirming Herschel Candidate Protoclusters from ALMA/VLA CO Observations journal February 2019
Mapping Quasar Light Echoes in 3D with Ly α Forest Tomography journal September 2019
TARDIS. I. A Constrained Reconstruction Approach to Modeling the z ∼ 2.5 Cosmic Web Probed by Ly α Forest Tomography journal December 2019
On the Gas Content, Star Formation Efficiency, and Environmental Quenching of Massive Galaxies in Protoclusters at z ≈ 2.0–2.5 journal December 2019
First Data Release of the COSMOS Ly α Mapping and Tomography Observations: 3D Ly α Forest Tomography at 2.05 < z < 2.55 journal August 2018
The progeny of a Cosmic Titan: a massive multi-component proto-supercluster in formation at z=2.45 in VUDS text January 2018
Bayesian cosmic density field inference from redshift space dark matter maps text January 2018
On the Gas Content, Star Formation Efficiency, and Environmental Quenching of Massive Galaxies in Proto-Clusters at z~2.0-2.5 text January 2019

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
cosmology: observations
galaxies: high red-shift
intergalactic medium
quasars: absorption lines
galaxies: clusters: general
techniques: spectroscopic