NON-EQUILIBRIUM-IONIZATION-STATE-OF-WARM–HOT-INTERGALACTIC-MEDIUM.pdfVIP

NON-EQUILIBRIUM IONIZATION STATE OF WARM–HOT INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM Kohji Yoshikawa Department of Physics, School of Science, University of Tokyo, Tokyo 113-0033, Japan kohji@utap.phys.s.u-tokyo.ac.jp and Shin Sasaki Department of Physics, Tokyo Metropolitan University, 1-1 Minami-Osawa, Hachioji, Tokyo 192-0397, Japan (Received ; accepted ) Abstract Time evolution of the ionization state of metals in the cosmic baryons is investi- gated in a cosmological context without the assumption of ionization equilibrium. We find that a significant fraction of ionized oxygen (O vii and O viii) in the warm-hot intergalactic medium (WHIM) is not in the ionization equilibrium state at a redshift of z ≃ 0. We also investigate the effect on the detectability and observables of WHIM as a consequence of such deviation from ionization equilibrium. It is found that the detectability of WHIM is not altered very much both through its emission and ab- sorption signatures, but line ratios between O vii and O viii are significantly different from those in the ionization equilibrium state. Key words: cosmology: miscellaneous — X-rays: general — methods: numerical 1. INTRODUCTION After Fukugita, Hogan, Peebles (1998) first pointed out the importance of studying the cosmic baryon budget, it is now widely accepted that only less than half of the cosmic baryons in the present universe have been detected, and the remaining portion, “the missing baryon”, has evaded the direct detection so far. Numerical simulatio