Simple models of metal-line absorption and emission from cool gas outflows

Abstract

We analyze the absorption and emission-line profiles produced by a set of simple, cool gas wind models motivated by galactic-scale outflow observations. We implement Monte Carlo radiative transfer techniques that track the propagation of scattered and fluorescent photons to generate one-dimensional spectra and two-dimensional spectral images. We focus on the Mg II λλ2796, 2803 doublet and Fe II UV1 multiplet at λ ≈ 2600 Å, but the results are applicable to other transitions that trace outflows (e.g., Na I, H I Lyα, Si II). By design, the resonance transitions show blueshifted absorption but one also predicts strong resonance and fine-structure line emission at roughly the systemic velocity. This line-emission "fills in" the absorption, reducing the equivalent width by up to 50%, shifting the absorption-line centroid by tens ofkms-1, and reducing the effective opacity near systemic. Analysis of cool gas outflows that ignores this line emission may incorrectly infer that the gas is partially covered, measure a significantly lower peak optical depth, and/or conclude that gas at systemic velocity is absent (e.g., an interstellar or slowly infalling component). Because the Fe II lines are connected by optically thin transitions to fine-structure levels, their profiles more closely reproduce the intrinsic opacity of the wind. Together these results naturally explain the absorption and emission-line characteristics observed for star-forming galaxies at z < 1. We also study a scenario promoted to describe the outflows of z ∼ 3 Lyman break galaxies and find profiles inconsistent with the observations due to scattered photon emission. Although line emission complicates the analysis of absorption-line profiles, the surface brightness profiles offer a unique means of assessing the morphology and size of galactic-scale winds. Furthermore, the kinematics and line ratios offer powerful diagnostics of outflows, motivating deep, spatially extended spectroscopic observations. © 2011. The American Astronomical Society. All rights reserved.