Hydrogen and Metal Line Absorption Around Low-Redshift Galaxies in
  Cosmological Hydrodynamic Simulations
  We study the physical conditions of the circum-galactic medium (CGM) around
z=0.25 galaxies as traced by HI and metal line absorption, using cosmological
hydrodynamic simulations that include galactic outflows. Using lines of sight
targeted at impact parameters from 10 kpc to 1 Mpc around galaxies with halo
masses from 10^11-10^13 M_solar, we study the physical conditions and their
variation with impact parameter b and line-of-sight velocity delta v in the CGM
as traced by HI, MgII, SiIV, CIV, OVI, and NeVIII absorbers. All ions show a
strong excess of absorption near galaxies compared to random lines of sight.
The excess continues beyond 1 Mpc, reflecting the correlation of metal
absorption with large-scale structure. Absorption is particularly enhanced
within about v<300 km/sec and roughly 300 kpc of galaxies (with distances
somewhat larger for the highest ion), approximately delineating the CGM; this
range contains the majority of global metal absorption. Low ions like MgII and
SiIV predominantly arise in denser gas closer to galaxies and drop more rapidly
with b, while high ions OVI and NeVIII trace more diffusely distributed gas
with a comparatively flat radial profile; CIV is intermediate. All ions
predominantly trace T~10^4-4.5 K photo-ionised gas at all b, but when hot CGM
gas is present (mostly in larger halos), we see strong collisionally-ionised
OVI and NeVIII at b <= 100 kpc. Larger halo masses generally produce more
absorption, though overall the trends are not as strong as that with impact
parameter. These findings arise using our favoured outflow scalings as expected
for momentum-driven winds; with no winds, the CGM gas remains mostly
unenriched, while our outflow model with a constant velocity and mass loading
factor produce hotter, more widely dispersed metals.
