Galaxy Formation and Gas Flows in Giant Lya Nebulae

by Moire Prescott (Drak Cosmology Center, University of Copenhagen)

Friday 22 Mar 2013, 10:30 → 11:30 Europe/Stockholm

FB52

At levels predominantly below current detection thresholds, the universe is glowing in Lya emission. Eventually, future instruments on large telescopes will provide a three-dimensional picture of this cosmic landscape, but the highest surface brightness peaks are already well within observational reach of existing facilities. Seen as giant (~100 kpc) Lya nebulae, these regions represent an active interface between the filamentary structure of the high redshift universe and the massive galaxies, active galactic nuclei (AGN), and protoclusters/groups forming within it. I will discuss the progress that we have made in understanding the environments, space density, and morphology of these systems, in probing the properties of the galaxies forming within them, and in disentangling the many physical processes that are at work. I will also highlight recent work using deep spectroscopic observations and high resolution imaging from HST to probe the flow and enrichment of material and to map out the location of the diffuse gas relative to the forming galaxies. Together, these observations provide kinematic, enrichment, and morphological constraints on cosmological simulations of galaxy formation and yield unique insight into the evolutionary trajectory of these growing massive systems.