FUSE and STIS Observations of Intervening OVI Absorption Line Systems in the Spectrum of PG0953+415

Abstract

We present FUSE and STIS observations of the IGM toward PG 0953+415 (z_em = 0.239). An O VI system at z = 0.06807 is detected in H I Lya, Lyb, Lyg, O VI N V, C IV, and C III. The observations are modeled as a low density intervening gas with a metallicity of 0.4 (+0.6, -0.2) times solar in photoionization equilibrium with the ionizing extragalactic radiation. The best fit is achieved with an ionization parameter, logU = -1.35, which implies nH ~ 10-5 cm-3 and a path length of ~ 80 kpc through the absorbing gas. H I Lya absorption at z = 0.14232 spans a velocity range of 410 km s-1 with the strongest components near 0 and 80 km s-1 in the z = 0.14232 rest frame. In this system O VI absorption is strong near 0 km s-1 and not detected at 80 km s-1. The new observations place constraints on the properties of the z = 0.14232 system but do not discriminate between collisional ionization in hot gas versus photoionization in a very low density medium with an ionization parameter logU > -0.74. The two O VI systems occur at redshifts where there are peaks in the number density of intervening galaxies along the line of sight. We update the estimate of the low redshift number density of intervening O VI systems. Over a total deltaz = 0.43, we detect six O VI systems with restframe equivalent widths of the O VI 1031.93 line exceeding 50 mA yielding dN/dz = 14 (+9, -6) for = 0.09. This implies a low redshift value of the baryonic contribution to the closure density of the O VI systems of WB(O VI) > 0.002h75-1 assuming the average metallicity in the O VI systems is 0.1 solar.