Revisiting the He II to H I ratio in the Intergalactic Medium

Abstract

We estimate the He II to H I column density ratio, η= N(He II)/N(H I), in the intergalactic medium towards the high redshift (z_{em} = 2.885) bright quasar QSO HE 2347-4342 using Voigt-profile fitting of the H I transitions in the Lyman series and the He II Lyman-$α$ transition as observed by the FUSE satellite. In agreement with previous studies, we find that $η> 50$ in most of the Lyman-$α$ forest except in four regions where it is much smaller ($η\sim 10-20$) and therefore inconsistent with photo-ionization by the UV background flux. We detect O VI and C IV absorption lines associated with two of these regions ($z_{\rm abs}$ = 2.6346 and 2.6498). We show that if we constrain the fit of the H I and/or He II absorption profiles with the presence of metal components, we can accommodate $η$ values in the range 15-100 in these systems assuming broadening is intermediate between pure thermal and pure turbulent. While simple photo-ionization models reproduce the observed N(O VI)/N(C IV) ratio, they fail to produce low $η$ values contrary to models with high temperature (i.e T $\ge 10^5$ K). The Doppler parameters measured for different species suggest a multiphase nature of the absorbing regions. Therefore, if low $η$ values were to be confirmed, we would favor a multi-phase model in which most of the gas is at high temperature ($>$ 10$^5$ K) but the metals and in particular C IV are due to lower temperature ($\sim$ few $10^4$ K) photo-ionized gas.

Accepted for publication in the MNRAS (11 pages, 9 figures, 2 tables)