Detection of the Missing Baryons toward the Sightline of H1821+643

Abstract

Based on constraints from Big Bang nucleosynthesis and the cosmic microwave background, the baryon content of the high-redshift Universe can be precisely determined. However, at low redshift, about one-third of the baryons remain unaccounted for, which poses the long-standing missing baryon problem. The missing baryons are believed to reside in large-scale filaments in the form of warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM). In this work, we employ a novel stacking approach to explore the hot phases of the WHIM. Specifically, we utilize the 470 ks Chandra LETG data of the luminous quasar, H 1821+643, along with previous measurements of UV absorption line systems and spectroscopic redshift measurements of galaxies toward the quasar’s sightline. We repeatedly blueshift and stack the X-ray spectrum of the quasar corresponding to the redshifts of the 17 absorption line systems. Thus, we obtain a stacked spectrum with 8.0 Ms total exposure, which allows us to probe X-ray absorption lines with unparalleled sensitivity. Based on the stacked data, we detect an O vii absorption line that exhibits a Gaussian line profile and is statistically significant at the 3.3 σ level. Since the redshifts of the UV absorption line systems were known a priori, this is the first definitive detection of an X-ray absorption line originating from the WHIM. The equivalent width of the O vii line is (4.1 ± 1.3) mÅ, which corresponds to an O vii column density of . We constrain the absorbing gas to have a density of for a single WHIM filament. We derive for the cosmological mass density of O vii , assuming that all 17 systems contribute equally.