2016MNRAS.462.1076C

Utilizing ab initio ultrahigh resolution hydrodynamical simulations, we investigate the properties of the interstellar and circumgalactic medium of Lyα blobs (LABs) at z = 3, focusing on three important emission lines: Lyα 1216 Å, He II 1640 Å and C IV 1549 Å. Their relative strengths provide a powerful probe of the thermodynamic properties of the gas when confronted with observations. By adjusting the dust attenuation effect using one parameter and matching the observed size-luminosity relation of LABs using another parameter, we show that our simulations can reproduce the observed C IV/Lyα and He II/Lyα ratios adequately. This analysis provides the first successful physical model to account for simultaneously the LAB luminosity function, luminosity-size relation and the C IV/Lyα and He II/Lyα ratios, with only two parameters. The physical underpinning for this model is that, in addition to the stellar component for the Lyα emission, the Lyα and C IV emission lines due to shock-heated gas are primarily collisional excitation driven and the He II emission line collisional ionization driven. We find that the density, temperature and metallicity of the gas responsible for each emission line is significantly distinct, in a multiphase interstellar and circumgalactic medium that is shock heated primarily by supernovae and secondarily by gravitational accretion of gas.