Gas and Galaxies in the Cosmic Web: What are Lyman alpha absorbers?
In this research, we investigate if Lyman alpha absorbers are related to the dark matter halos around galaxies. We use previously collected data from the Sloan digital Sky survey and Keeney et al. to record the positions of AGN, galaxy positions, and Lyman alpha absorber redshifts. This information is then used to create visual maps, data tables, and graphs of the bright and dim galaxies around each absorber via python code in Jupyter Notebook using the matplotlib and astropy libraries. These figures include information on objects’ position, redshift, column density, virial radius (if applicable), and the distance of the closest galaxy to each absorber with respect to its virial radius. We find that while most absorbers have agalaxy closer than 25x its virial radius, very few have a galaxy closer than 8x its virial radius. This supports the conclusion that the majority of Lyman alpha absorbers are not directly related to the dark matter halos around galaxies. Another conclusion we come to is that there is very little correlation between the nearest galaxy distance and the column density of an absorber.
In this research, we investigate if Lyman alpha absorbers are related to the dark matter halos around galaxies. We use previously collected data from the Sloan digital Sky survey and Keeney et al. to record the positions of AGN, galaxy positions, and Lyman alpha absorber redshifts. This information is then used to create visual maps, data tables, and graphs of the bright and dim galaxies around each absorber via python code in Jupyter Notebook using the matplotlib and astropy libraries. These figures include information on objects’ position, redshift, column density, virial radius (if applicable), and the distance of the closest galaxy to each absorber with respect to its virial radius. We find that while most absorbers have agalaxy closer than 25x its virial radius, very few have a galaxy closer than 8x its virial radius. This supports the conclusion that the majority of Lyman alpha absorbers are not directly related to the dark matter halos around galaxies. Another conclusion we come to is that there is very little correlation between the nearest galaxy distance and the column density of an absorber.