2016MNRAS.455..884C

We explore the impact of Fermi-like acceleration of Lyman α (Ly α) photons across shock fronts on the observed Ly α spectral line shape. We first confirm the result of Neufeld & McKee that this mechanism gives rise to extended blue wings which may have been observed in some radio galaxies. Our Monte Carlo radiative transfer calculations further show that in a minor modification of the shell model, in which we add an additional static shell of hydrogen, this process can naturally explain the small blue bumps observed in a subset of Ly α-emitting galaxies, which have been difficult to explain with conventional shell models. Blue bumps can be produced with an additional column density of static hydrogen as small as N^static_H I ≪N^shell_H I, and typically occur at roughly the outflow velocity of the shell. In our model the spectra of so-called blue-bump objects might reflect an evolutionary stage in which the outflows regulating the escape of Ly α photons are still engulfed within a static interstellar medium.