The Evolution of the Effective Equation of State of the Intergalactic Medium
Open Access
- 1 May 2000
- journal article
- research article
- Published by American Astronomical Society in The Astrophysical Journal
- Vol. 534 (1) , 41-56
- https://doi.org/10.1086/308733
Abstract
We develop a method to extract the "effective equation of state" of the intergalactic medium from the Doppler (b) parameter distribution of the low-density Lyα forest. We test the method on numerical simulations and then apply it to published observations of the Lyα forest at redshifts z 0-4. We find that the effective equation of state is close to isothermal at redshift z ~ 3, indicating that a second reheating of the intergalactic medium took place at z ~ 3. This reheating can plausibly be identified with the reionization of He II observed to occur at z ~ 3.Keywords
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