Absorption-line detections of 10{sup 5}-10{sup 6} K gas in spiral-rich groups of galaxies

Using the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on the Hubble Space Telescope, the COS Science Team has conducted a high signal-to-noise survey of 14 bright QSOs. In a previous paper, these far-UV spectra were used to discover 14 'warm' (T ≥ 10{sup 5} K) absorbers using a combination of broad Lyα and broad O VI absorptions. A reanalysis of a few of this new class of absorbers using slightly relaxed fitting criteria finds as many as 20 warm absorbers could be present in this sample. A shallow, wide spectroscopic galaxy redshift survey has been conducted around these sight lines to investigate the warm absorber environment, which is found to be spiral-rich groups or cluster outskirts with radial velocity dispersions σ = 250-750 km s{sup –1}. While 2σ evidence is presented favoring the hypothesis that these absorptions are associated with the galaxy groups and not with the individual, nearest galaxies, this evidence has considerable systematic uncertainties and is based on a small sample size so it is not entirely conclusive. If the associations are with galaxy groups, the observed frequency of warm absorbers (dN/dz = 3.5-5 per unit redshift) requires them to be very extended as an ensemble on the sky (∼1 Mpc in radius at high covering factor). Most likely these warm absorbers are interface gas clouds whose presence implies the existence of a hotter (T ∼ 10{sup 6.5} K), diffuse, and probably very massive (>10{sup 11} M {sub ☉}) intra-group medium which has yet to be detected directly.