Mapping metals at high redshift with far-infrared lines

Abstract

Cosmic metal enrichment is one of the key physical processes regulating galaxy formation and the evolution of the intergalactic medium (IGM). However, determining the metal content of the most distant galaxies has proven so far almost impossible; also, absorption line experiments at z ≳ 6 become increasingly difficult because of instrumental limitations and the paucity of background quasars. With the advent of Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA), far-infrared emission lines provide a novel tool to study early metal enrichment. Among these, the [CII] line at 157.74 μm is the most luminous line emitted by the interstellar medium of galaxies. It can also resonant scatter comic microwave background (CMB) photons inducing characteristic intensity fluctuations (δI/ICMB) near the peak of the CMB spectrum, thus allowing to probe the low-density IGM. We compute both [CII] galaxy emission and metal-induced CMB fluctuations at z ~ 6 by using adaptive mesh refinement cosmological hydrodynamical simulations and produce mock observations to be directly compared with ALMA Band 6 data (vobs ~ 272 GHz). The [CII] line flux is correlated with MUV as log(Fpeak/μJy) =-27.205-2.253MUV-0.038M2UV. Such relation is in very good agreement with recent ALMA observations of MUV