Speaker
Description
Lyman-alpha (Lyα) emission serves as a valuable probe of gas kinematics in and around galaxies. Observations of high-redshift galaxies frequently exhibit distinctive Lyα spectral features, often indicative of optically thick, neutral galactic outflows. However, the extent to which galaxy formation simulations can reproduce these observations remains an open question. We investigate this issue by analyzing both idealized and cosmological galaxy simulations run with different input physics. Our analysis focuses on two kinematic measures derived from Lyα line profiles and surface brightness profiles, and compares simulation results with observations of Lyα emitters. Simulations incorporating strong stellar feedback successfully reproduce Lyα profiles characterized by relatively weak outflow signatures. However, these simulations often struggle to produce optically thick, neutral outflows, including MHD simulations incorporating cosmic ray pressure. These results suggest that more work is needed to fully account for the observed diversity of Lyα spectral features in high-redshift galaxies.
