The Circumgalactic Medium of Andromeda

Our view of galaxies has been transformed in recent years with diffuse halo gas surrounding galaxies that contains at least as many metals and baryons as their disks. While single sight lines through galaxy halos seen in absorption have provided key new constraints, they provide only average properties. Our massive neighbor, the Andromeda (M31) galaxy, provides an unique way to study its circumgalactic medium whereby we can study it using not one or two, but ~36 sightlines thanks to its proximity. With our Large HST program - Project AMIGA (Absorption Maps In the Gas of Andromeda), our goals are to determine the spatial distribution of the halo properties of a L* galaxy using 36 background targets at different radii and azimuths. In this brief paper, I discuss briefly the scientific rationale of Project AMIGA and some early science results. In particular, for the first time we have demonstrated that M31 has a gaseous halo that extends to R _vir with as much as metal and baryonic masses than in its disk and has substantial change in its ionization properties with more highly ionized gas found at R ~ R _vir than cooler gas found near the disk.