%0 Generic %1 borisova2016ubiquitous %A Borisova, Elena %A Cantalupo, Sebastiano %A Lilly, Simon J. %A Marino, Raffaella A. %A Gallego, Sofia G. %A Bacon, Roland %A Blaizot, Jeremy %A Bouché, Nicolas %A Brinchmann, Jarle %A Carollo, C. Marcella %A Caruana, Joseph %A Finley, Hayley %A Herenz, Edmund C. %A Richard, Johan %A Schaye, Joop %A Straka, Lorrie A. %A Turner, Monica L. %A Urrutia, Tanya %A Verhamme, Anne %A Wisotzki, Lutz %D 2016 %K lya muse nebulae quasar %T Ubiquitous giant Lyman $\alpha$ nebulae around the brightest quasars at $z\sim3.5$ revealed with MUSE %U http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.01422 %X Direct Lyman a imaging of fluorescent emission from intergalactic gas at z~2 has recently revealed giant cosmological structures around luminous quasars with unexpected physical properties, e.g. the Slug Nebula (Cantalupo et al. 2014). Despite their high luminosity, the detection rate of such systems in narrow-band and spectroscopic surveys is very low, i.e. less than 10%. If intrinsic and not due to observational limitations, such a low detection frequency would encode crucial information on the distribution and properties of cold gas around quasars, their emission opening angle and duty cycle. In this study, we exploit the unique capabilities of the MUSE ESO/VLT to perform a blind survey for giant Ly $\alpha$ nebulae around 17 of the brightest radio-quiet quasars at 3<z<4 that does not suffer from most of the observational limitations of previous surveys. After careful data reduction and analysis performed with tools specifically developed for MUSE datacubes, we found that each observed quasar is associated at a high significance level with a giant Ly $\alpha$ nebula with projected linear sizes larger than 100 physical kpc (pkpc) and, in some cases, extending up to 320 pkpc. Despite having different morphologies, the circularly averaged surface brightness profiles appear very similar and are consistent with a power law with slope ~ -1.8. After correcting for the different redshift, the properties of these nebulae are also remarkably similar to the Slug Nebula, suggesting a similar origin for all systems and that a large fraction of gas in and around massive haloes hosting bright quasars could be in a "cold" (T~$10^4$ K) and dense phase. In addition, our results imply that "cold" gas is ubiquitous within at least 50 pkpc from every bright quasar at 3<z<4 independently of the quasar emission opening angle. If quasar emission is anisotropic, this distance increases to at least 200 pkpc.

@misc{borisova2016ubiquitous, abstract = {Direct Lyman a imaging of fluorescent emission from intergalactic gas at z~2 has recently revealed giant cosmological structures around luminous quasars with unexpected physical properties, e.g. the Slug Nebula (Cantalupo et al. 2014). Despite their high luminosity, the detection rate of such systems in narrow-band and spectroscopic surveys is very low, i.e. less than 10%. If intrinsic and not due to observational limitations, such a low detection frequency would encode crucial information on the distribution and properties of cold gas around quasars, their emission opening angle and duty cycle. In this study, we exploit the unique capabilities of the MUSE ESO/VLT to perform a blind survey for giant Ly $\alpha$ nebulae around 17 of the brightest radio-quiet quasars at 3<z<4 that does not suffer from most of the observational limitations of previous surveys. After careful data reduction and analysis performed with tools specifically developed for MUSE datacubes, we found that each observed quasar is associated at a high significance level with a giant Ly $\alpha$ nebula with projected linear sizes larger than 100 physical kpc (pkpc) and, in some cases, extending up to 320 pkpc. Despite having different morphologies, the circularly averaged surface brightness profiles appear very similar and are consistent with a power law with slope ~ -1.8. After correcting for the different redshift, the properties of these nebulae are also remarkably similar to the Slug Nebula, suggesting a similar origin for all systems and that a large fraction of gas in and around massive haloes hosting bright quasars could be in a "cold" (T~$10^4$ K) and dense phase. In addition, our results imply that "cold" gas is ubiquitous within at least 50 pkpc from every bright quasar at 3<z<4 independently of the quasar emission opening angle. If quasar emission is anisotropic, this distance increases to at least 200 pkpc.}, added-at = {2016-05-06T09:51:40.000+0200}, author = {Borisova, Elena and Cantalupo, Sebastiano and Lilly, Simon J. and Marino, Raffaella A. and Gallego, Sofia G. and Bacon, Roland and Blaizot, Jeremy and Bouché, Nicolas and Brinchmann, Jarle and Carollo, C. Marcella and Caruana, Joseph and Finley, Hayley and Herenz, Edmund C. and Richard, Johan and Schaye, Joop and Straka, Lorrie A. and Turner, Monica L. and Urrutia, Tanya and Verhamme, Anne and Wisotzki, Lutz}, biburl = {https://www.bibsonomy.org/bibtex/2b887f86e98dd45fbc7cc5530a097ea96/miki}, description = {[1605.01422] Ubiquitous giant Lyman $\alpha$ nebulae around the brightest quasars at $z\sim3.5$ revealed with MUSE}, interhash = {10ee004aecc70f2f016e3c41ce0fd4e4}, intrahash = {b887f86e98dd45fbc7cc5530a097ea96}, keywords = {lya muse nebulae quasar}, note = {cite arxiv:1605.01422Comment: 19 pages, 8 figures, 3 Tables, submitted to ApJ}, timestamp = {2016-05-06T09:51:40.000+0200}, title = {Ubiquitous giant Lyman $\alpha$ nebulae around the brightest quasars at $z\sim3.5$ revealed with MUSE}, url = {http://arxiv.org/abs/1605.01422}, year = 2016 }