Mining for Metals in the Lyman Alpha Forest

Abstract

In order to ascertain the extent of metal enrichment in the Ly alpha forest, we have analysed a very high S/N spectrum of the z = 3.625 QSO Q1422+231. We find that in high column density Ly alpha clouds, the power law column density distribution function of C IV continues down to log N(C IV) = 11.7. In addition, by analysing pixel-by-pixel optical depths we show that there are considerably more metals in the Ly alpha forest than are currently directly detectable.

To appear in `Cosmic Evolution and Galaxy Formation: Structure, Interaction and Feedback', ASP conference series, 2000. Ed. J Franco, E. Terlevich, O. Lopez-Cruz and I. Aretxaga