GHRS Observations of the Lyman alpha Forest

Abstract

I review the results obtained using the GHRS on low redshift Lyman alpha absorbers. Until the advent of HST and the GHRS, the existence of such absorbers was doubted. The confirmation of their existence, in one of the first GHRS GTO team results to be published, must rank as one of the HSTs most interesting results. The GHRS resolution allows us to probe equivalent widths well below those detectable with the FOS, and has led to a number of interesting new questions. One example is the apparent disagreement between the GHRS result that there are many Lyman alpha absorbers which are not associated with luminous galaxies, and FOS studies which suggest that all such absorbers have a nearby galaxy causing them. This almost certainly shows that the equivalent width (or column density) range reachable by the GHRS includes gas from a wide range of causes, and not only the halos of luminous galaxies. With these data, we are seeing the debris left over from Galaxy formation, material flung out from galaxy interactions and starbursts, and also diffuse halo material at the outer edges of normal galaxies.