Bibcode
Wiersma, Robert P. C.; Schaye, Joop; Dalla Vecchia, C.; Booth, C. M.; Theuns, Tom; Aguirre, Anthony
Referencia bibliográfica
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 409, Issue 1, pp. 132-144.
Fecha de publicación:
11
2010
Número de citas
47
Número de citas referidas
47
Descripción
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 by what halo
masses. We find that the age of the metals decreases strongly with the
density of the gas in which they end up. At least half of the metals
that reside in the diffuse intergalactic medium (IGM) at z = 0 (z = 2)
were ejected from galaxies above z = 2 (z = 3). The mass of the haloes
that last contained the metals increases rapidly with the gas density.
More than half of the mass in intergalactic metals was ejected by haloes
with total masses less than 1011 Msolar and
stellar masses less than 109 Msolar. The range of
halo masses that contribute to the enrichment is wider for the hotter
part of the IGM. By combining the `when' and `by what' aspects of the
enrichment history, we show that metals residing in the lower density
gas were typically ejected earlier and by lower mass haloes.