Tracing the warm-hot intergalactic medium in the local Universe

Abstract

We present a simple method for tracing the spatial distribution and predicting the physical properties of the Warm-Hot Intergalactic Medium (WHIM), from the map of galaxy light in the Local Universe. Under the assumption that biasing is local and monotonic we map the ∼2 h-1 Mpc smoothed density field of galaxy light into the mass-density field, from which we infer the spatial distribution of the WHIM in the Local Supercluster. Taking into account the scatter in the WHIM density-temperature and density-metallicity relation, extracted from the z = 0 outputs of high-resolution and large-box-size hydrodynamical cosmological simulations, we are able to quantify the probability of detecting WHIM signatures in the form of absorption features in the X-ray spectra, along arbitrary directions in the sky. To illustrate the usefulness of this semi-analytical method we focus on the WHIM properties in the Virgo cluster region. © 2005 RAS.