Absorption systems at z similar to 2 as a probe of the circumgalactic medium: a probabilistic approach

We characterize the properties of the intergalactic medium (IGM) around a sample of galaxies extracted from state-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations of structure formation in a cosmological volume of 25 Mpc comoving at z similar to 2. The simulations are based on two different subresolution schemes for star formation and supernova feedback: the Multi-Phase Particle Integrator (MUPPI) scheme and the Effective Model. We develop a quantitative and probabilistic analysis based on the apparent optical depth method of the properties of the absorbers as a function of impact parameter from their nearby galaxies: in such a way, we probe different environments from circumgalactic medium to low-density filaments. Absorbers' properties are then compared with a spectroscopic observational data set obtained from high-resolution quasar spectra. Our main focus is on the N-C IV-N-H I relation around simulated galaxies: the results obtained with MUPPI and the Effective model are remarkably similar, with small differences only confined to regions at impact parameters b = [1 - 3] x r(vir). Using C IV as a tracer of the metallicity, we obtain evidence that the observed metal absorption systems have the highest probability to be confined in a region of 150-400kpc around galaxies. Near-filament environments have instead metallicities too low to be probed by present-day telescopes, but could be probed by future spectroscopical studies. Finally, we compute C IV covering fractions which are in agreement with observational data.