Understanding the Baryon Cycle
Abstract
The baryon cycle is a complex phenomenon that encapsulates all the ways in which gas gets perpetually processed in overdensities. From the infall of gas into galactic potentials, collapse into and processing by stars, outflow due to stellar and/or AGN feedback, and even "mixing" due to cooling. The baryon cycle can be thought of as flow of multi-phase gas within and between three broad settings: the Interstellar Medium, the Circumgalactic Medium, and the extended environment. Environments play a crucial role in galaxy evolution. In group environments, while some studies find increased star formation suppression events, several other studies report increased star formation due to gas supply from satellite galaxies, mergers, and accretion from the cosmic web. The dichotomy between gas-rich groups and gas-poor groups has been reasoned to be dependent on the stage in evolution with the former being in early and the latter in late stages of assembly. However, the relative contribution of environmental and intrinsic galactic processes in these early stages of assembly still remains poorly understood. With the high sensitivity and resolution of MeerKAT we can clearly characterize signatures of interaction between group members in the neutral phase. Using spectra from SALT, we can study the properties of the members and their ionized gas phase. I will talk about the preliminary results of my work and introduce the baryon cycle which is crucial for constraining galaxy evolution.
- Publication:
-
Annual Conference and General Assembly of the
- Pub Date:
- March 2022
- Bibcode:
- 2022afas.confE..64S