Mandy Chen

The three-dimensional structure of the cool CGM -- its depth along the line of sight and how clumpy it is -- is poorly constrained, because quasar absorption lines only probe pencil beams. In this paper we show that the ratio of line-of-sight to plane-of-sky velocity dispersions measured from IFS emission-line maps constrains the line-of-sight depth of CGM nebulae relative to their projected size. Comparing with direct numerical simulations of turbulence projected through emitting slabs, we find that these nebulae are broadly as deep as they are wide. This paper sets up the theoretical framework for the turbulence diagnostics developed in a companion paper (Paper II, in prep).

In this paper we investigate the turbulence and energy injection in the extended nebulae surrounding two luminous obscured quasars.

In this paper we use an ensemble sample of eight quasar nebulae at z≈0.5–1. The VSFs measured for all eight nebulae are best explained by subsonic turbulence in the cool gas, which in turn strongly suggests that the gas is dynamically coupled to the hot ambient medium. We also found that the turbulent heating rate in the QSO nebulae are around 1000 times higher than that in cool gas clumps probed in absorption.

In this paper we use velocity structure functions to constrain the turbulence in extended QSO host nebulae revealed by [OII] and [OIII] emission lines. One source shows spectacular agreement with the expectation from Kolmogorov turbulence!
You can watch me giving a 5-min video summary, posted on the Galactic Atmospheres online forum.

In this paper we presented a detailed analysis of two giant Lyman-alpha arcs at z > 3 strongly lensed by a massive cluster. Using spatially-resolved line profiles revealed in deep MUSE observations, we identified these arcs as supergalactic winds driven by nearby star-forming galaxies.
You can also watch me giving a 4-min video summary, posted as part of the KITP workshop "Fundamentals of Gaseous Halos".

Using a super cool cluster lensing system in the nearby Universe, we demonstrated that the geometric configuration of the lensing effect here requires the presence of dark matter, hence presenting a two-dimensional challenge to alternative gravity theories.
There is also an Astrobites article giving a very nice summary of this paper.

Here we directly estimate the mass of a supermassive black hole (SMBH) using a lensed image near the center of a brightest cluster galaxy at z=0.5, when the Universe was only half of its current age. The mass of the SMBH turns out to be ~1000 times more massive than the SMBH at the center of the Milky Way!