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A [C ii] 158 μm emitter associated with an O i absorber at the end of the reionization epoch

Nature Astronomy volume 5, pages 1110–1117 (2021)Cite this article

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Abstract

The physical and chemical properties of the circumgalactic medium at z ≳ 6 have been studied successfully through the absorption in the spectra of background quasi-stellar objects1,2,3. One of the most crucial questions is to investigate the nature and location of the source galaxies that give rise to these early metal absorbers4,5,6. Theoretical models suggest that momentum-driven outflows from typical star-forming galaxies can eject metals into the circumgalactic medium and the intergalactic medium at z = 5–6 (refs. 7,8,9). Deep, dedicated surveys have searched for Lyα emission associated with strong C iv absorbers at z ≈ 6, but only a few Lyα-emitter candidates have been detected. Interpreting these detections is moreover ambiguous because Lyα is a resonant line10,11,12, raising the need for complementary techniques for detecting absorbers’ host galaxies. Here we report a [C ii] 158 μm emitter detected using the Atacama Large Millimeter Array that is associated with a strong low-ionization absorber, O i, at z = 5.978. The projected impact parameter between O i and [C ii] emitter is 20.0 kpc. The measured [C ii] luminosity is 7.0 × 107 solar luminosities. Further analysis indicates that strong O i absorbers may reside in the circumgalactic medium of massive halos one to two orders of magnitude more massive than expected values8,14.

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Fig. 1: ALMA observations.
Fig. 2: Comparison between simulations and observations.
Fig. 3: Comparison of cross-correlation function between simulations and observations.

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Data availability

Both ALMA and HST data sets used in this work are publicly available. The data reported in this paper are available through the ALMA archive at https://almascience.eso.org/aq/ with project code 2017.1.01088.S and through the HST archive at https://archive.stsci.edu/hst/ with project codes 15410 and 12974. Other data are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Code availability

The ALMA data were reduced using the CASA pipeline version 5.4.0, available at https://casa.nrao.edu/casa_obtaining.shtml.

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Acknowledgements

Z.C. and Y.W. are supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (grant no. 2018YFA0404503) and the National Science Foundation of China (grant no. 12073014). M.N. acknowledges support from European Research Council advanced grant no. 740246 (Cosmic_Gas). F.W. is thankful for support provided by NASA through the NASA Hubble Fellowship grant no. HST-HF2-51448.001-A awarded by the Space Telescope Science Institute, which is operated by the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc., under NASA contract NAS5-26555. The National Radio Astronomy Observatory is a facility of the National Science Foundation operated under cooperative agreement by Associated Universities, Inc. J.Y. is a Strittmatter Fellow in Steward Observatory, University of Arizona. The F125W and F160W HST observations in the QSO J2054 field were conducted in the HST program (Proposal ID: 15064). We appreciate the principal investigator Caitlin Casey and the team of this program for collecting these data in Cycle 25.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Astronomy, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Yunjing Wu, Zheng Cai & Shiwu Zhang

  2. Center for Astronomy Technology, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China

    Zheng Cai

  3. Peng Cheng Laboratory, Shenzhen, China

    Zheng Cai

  4. Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg, Germany

    Marcel Neeleman

  5. New Mexico State University, Las Cruces, NM, USA

    Kristian Finlator

  6. Cosmic Dawn Center (DAWN), Niels Bohr Institute, University of Copenhagen / DTU Space, Technical University of Denmark, Lyngby, Denmark

    Kristian Finlator

  7. Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, UCO/Lick Observatory, University of California, Santa Cruz, CA, USA

    J. Xavier Prochaska

  8. Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe (Kavli IPMU), The University of Tokyo, Kashiwa, Japan

    J. Xavier Prochaska

  9. Kavli Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics, Peking University, Beijing, China

    Ran Wang

  10. National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, VA, USA

    Bjorn H. C. Emonts

  11. Steward Observatory, University of Arizona, Tucson, AZ, USA

    Xiaohui Fan, Feige Wang & Jinyi Yang

  12. Leibniz-Institut für Astrophysik Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Laura C. Keating

  13. Department of Physics, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA, USA

    Joseph F. Hennawi

  14. CAS Key Laboratory for Research in Galaxies and Cosmology, Department of Astronomy, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

    Junxian Wang

  15. School of Astronomy and Space Science, University of Science and Technology of China, Hefei, China

    Junxian Wang

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  1. Yunjing Wu
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Contributions

Y.W. and Z.C. led the data reduction, pipeline development, analysis and manuscript writing. Z.C., M.N., K.F. and J.X.P. conceived the project and led the telescope proposal. Z.C. is the principal investigator of the ALMA program (Program ID: 2017.1.01088.S). M.N., K.F. and S.Z. all participated in the analysis and data reduction. R.W. and B.H.C.E. helped with checking of the ALMA data reduction and analysis. X.F., L.C.K., F.W., J.Y., J.F.H. and J.W. all helped significantly with the interpretation and commented on the ALMA proposal and the paper. All authors discussed the results and commented on the manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Zheng Cai.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Astronomy thanks Matthieu Béthermin and the other, anonymous, reviewer(s) for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Extended data

Extended Data Fig. 1 Channel maps in the whole observed field of view.

These channel maps are arranged from -641.281 to + 734.366 km/s. The channel width is set as the same as [CII] intensity map as 344 km/s for each map. The black and dark red cross indicate the position of QSO J2054 and [CII]2054, respectively. The sizes of the synthesized beams are demonstrated in the bottom-left of these panel.

Extended Data Fig. 2 The detailed pixel flux distributions of different Channel maps.

The green lines show the best-fit single-Gaussian models. We regard the single-Gaussian fitted standard deviation (STD) as the noise in these intensity maps.

Extended Data Fig. 3 Different polarization-correlation maps.

Upper panels, The moment-0 and spectrum under XX polarization. The [CII] moment-0 maps is collapsed based on the same emission range as Fig. 1 and shown by the yellow shaded region. The outer contour is at 3σ level, with contours in steps of 1- σ. The 1- σ rms is 2.47 × 10−2 Jy beam−1 km s−1. Dashed lines represent -2σ-level contours. The integral [CII] flux is 0.0768 ± 0.0247 Jy km s−1. The synthesized beams are shown in the bottom-left of each mom-0 map. Lower panels, The results under YY polarization. The integral [CII] flux is 0.0667 ± 0.0254 Jy km s−1, while the 1- σ is 2.54 × 10−2 Jy beam−1 km s−1.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 4 Multi-exposure observations.

Left panel: The intensity maps of three individual exposures. The integral [CII] fluxes are 0.0935, 0.0786 and 0.0490 Jy beam−1 km s−1. Meanwhile the 1- σ standard deviation are 0.0319, 0.0335, and 0.0269 Jy beam−1 km s−1, respectively. Right panel: The corresponding 1-D spectra of [CII]2054 in the different individual exposure shown in the left. The beam sizes are shown in the bottom-left of each mom-0 map. The yellow shaded region shows the emission range that is used to generate the [C II]moment-0 maps.

Source data

Extended Data Fig. 5 The number of candidates in the deep ASPECS Band-6 datacube.

We found 719 sources having FWHM ≥250 km s−1 in a 4.2 arcmin2 area of the ASPECS survey. In the figure, sources with Full Width Half Maximum (FWHM) between 200 and 500 km s−1 are present. The vertical dashed line represents the FWHM of the single Gaussian fitting of the [CII]2054.

Extended Data Fig. 6 High-resolution HST broad-band images for five different filters.

These images are sorted by the filter central wavelength. From left to right, these images are F606W, F814W, F105W, F125W, and F160W, respectively. Further, different rows represent different continuum sources (as defined in Table 1). The HST photometry is based on apertures with a 0.6 arcsec diameter, as shown by the green and darkgreen circles. The orange (2-5 σ) and darkred contours (2-4 σ) represent the 264GHz-continuum and [CII]-emission regions in the ALMA observations, respectively. We find no continuum emission in the [CII]-emission region of [CII]2054 in all five HST images.

Extended Data Fig. 7 Color-color diagrams used to select galaxies associated with the OI absorber.

The color properties of these sources are calculated under the AB magnitudes. The plotted error bars show the propagated uncertainties based on the 1 σ errors in magnitudes. The continuum sources are plotted in blue circles. The red and dark blue dots represent the color properties of simulated star-forming galaxies at z > 5.5 and z < 4, respectively. High-redshift selection criteria are based on the distribution of these template galaxies and shown in the grey-shaded regions. Left: I - Y vs. V - I two color diagram. In the left panel, we rule out most continuum sources as high-redshift galaxies, except for C1-1 and C5-3. These two galaxies have the same color properties as the simulated high redshift galaxies, and are plotted as a purple and magenta dot. Right: Y - J vs. I - Y two color diagram. In the right panel, we rule out C1-1 and C5-3 as high-redshift candidates. Note QSO J2054-0005 is plotted as a blue-violet star.

Extended Data Fig. 8 The relationship between the projected impact parameters and halo masses of strong OI absorbers in different simulations.

The halo mass of the [CII]2054 is converted directly from the [CII] luminosity to the halo mass relation (Leung et al. 2020). The error bars represent 1-σ uncertainties of the estimated halo mass. In the three top panels, grey dots represent OI absorbers with the REW of 0.12 ± 0.05 Å (consistent with observations). Meanwhile, Red star represents [CII]2054. Bottom panels show the halo mass distribution of different simulations. In the bottom panels, Red arrow shows that the host halo mass of [CII]2054 is one order of magnitude larger than the median value predicted by all of these simulations.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

The spectrum of [C ii]2054.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 3

The spectrum of [C ii]2054 in different polarization correlations.

Source Data Extended Data Fig. 4

The spectrum of [C ii]2054 in different exposures.

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Wu, Y., Cai, Z., Neeleman, M. et al. A [C ii] 158 μm emitter associated with an O i absorber at the end of the reionization epoch. Nat Astron 5, 1110–1117 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41550-021-01471-4

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