Absorption spectra from galactic wind models: a framework to link PLUTO simulations to TRIDENT

Abstract

Galactic winds probe how feedback regulates the mass and metallicity of galaxies. Galactic winds have cold gas, which is mainly observable with absorption and emission lines. Theoretically studying how absorption lines are produced requires numerical simulations and realistic starburst UV backgrounds. We use outputs from a suite of 3D PLUTO simulations of wind-cloud interactions to first estimate column densities and temperatures. Then, to create synthetic spectra, we developed a python interface to link our PLUTO simulations to TRIDENT via the YT-package infrastructure. First we produce UV backgrounds accounting for the star formation rate of starbursts. For this purpose, we use fluxes generated by STARBURST99, which are then processed through CLOUDY to create customised ion tables. Such tables are subsequently read into TRIDENT to generate absorption spectra. We explain how the various packages and tools communicate with each other to create ion spectra consistent with spectral energy distributions of starburst systems.