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28 March 2024
 
  » arxiv » astro-ph/9507047

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The Distribution of Column Densities and b Values in the Lyman-Alpha Forest
Esther M. Hu ; Tae-Sun Kim ; Lennox L. Cowie ; Antoinette Songaila ; Michael Rauch ;
Date 13 Jul 1995
Journal Astron.J. 110 (1995) 1526-1543
AbstractWe describe the properties of the Ly$alpha$ forest in the column density range $ hi geq 2 imes10^{12}$ cm$^{-2}$ based on 1056 lines in the wavelength range 4300--5100AA measured in extremely high S/N, $R=36,000$ spectra of four quasars. The column density distribution is well described by a -1.5 power law to $2 imes10^{12}$ cm$^{-2}$, below which limit confusion becomes too severe to measure a spectrum of individual clouds. The distribution of $b$ values shows a well-defined lower envelope with a cutoff at $b=20kms$ corresponding to a cloud temperature of 24,000 K. There is only a very small fraction (less than 1%) of narrow line clouds which cannot be identified with metal-lines. From modeling the Ly$alpha$ absorption lines as complexes of clouds each with thermal broadening corresponding to $b_c$ we find the $b$ distribution can be understood if there is a mean of 3.25 clouds per absorption line with a spread in velocity centroids characterized by a dispersion of $10.75kms$.
Source arXiv, astro-ph/9507047
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