A Giant Shell of Ionized Gas Discovered near M82 with the Dragonfly Spectral Line Mapper Pathfinder

Abstract

Abstract We present the discovery of a giant cloud of ionized gas in the field of the starbursting galaxy M82. Emission from the cloud is seen in Hα and [N ii] λ6583 in data obtained though a small pathfinder instrument used to test the key ideas that will be implemented in the Dragonfly Spectral Line Mapper, an upcoming ultranarrow-bandpass imaging version of the Dragonfly Telephoto Array. The discovered cloud has a shell-like morphology with a linear extent of 0.°8 and is positioned 0.°6 northwest of M82. At the heliocentric distance of the M81 group, the cloud’s longest angular extent corresponds to 55 kpc and its projected distance from the nucleus of M82 is 40 kpc. The cloud has an average Hα surface brightness of 2 × 10−18 erg cm − 2 s − 1 arcsec − 2 . The [N ii] λ6583/Hα line ratio varies from [N ii]/Hα ∼ 0.2 to [N ii]/Hα ∼ 1.0 across the cloud, with higher values found in its eastern end. Follow-up spectra obtained with Keck LRIS confirm the existence of the cloud and yield line ratios of [N ii] λ6583/Hα = 0.340 ± 0.003 and [S ii] λλ6716, 6731/Hα = 0.64 ± 0.03 in the cloud. This giant cloud of material could be lifted from M82 by tidal interactions or by its powerful starburst. Alternatively, it may be gas infalling from the cosmic web, potentially precipitated by the superwinds of M82. Deeper data are needed to test these ideas further. The upcoming Dragonfly Spectral Line Mapper will have 120 lenses, 40× more than in the pathfinder instrument used to obtain the data presented here.