The DOI matches its Crossref record; 9 of the 9 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
The physics of the intergalactic medium
Open accessAbstract
Intergalactic space is filled with a pervasive medium of ionized gas, the intergalactic medium (IGM). A residual neutral fraction is detected in the spectra of quasistellar objects at both low and high redshifts, revealing a highly fluctuating medium with temperatures characteristic of photoionized gas. The statistics of the fluctuations are well reproduced by numerical gravity-hydrodynamics simulations within the context of standard cosmological structure formation scenarios. Thus, the study of the IGM offers an opportunity to probe the nature of the primordial density fluctuations on scales unavailable to other methods. The simulations also suggest that the IGM is the dominant reservoir of baryons produced by the Big Bang, and so the principal source of the matter from which galaxies formed. The detection of metal systems within the IGM shows that it was enriched by evolved stars early in its history, demonstrating an intimate connection between galaxy formation and the IGM. A comprehensive review of the current understanding of the structure and physical properties of the IGM and its relation to galaxies is presented, concluding with comments on prospects for furthering the study of the IGM using future ground-based facilities and space-based experiments.
Overview
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Verification
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Citations
Cites
Three‐Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe ( WMAP ) Observations: Implications for Cosmology
Spergel, D. N., Bean, R., Dore, O., Nolta, M. R., Bennett, C. L., Dunkley, J., Hinshaw, G., Jarosik, N., Komatsu, E., Page, L., et al. (2007) · The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series · doi:10.1086/513700 · Cited by 6,778
Starburst99: Synthesis Models for Galaxies with Active Star Formation
Leitherer, C., Schaerer, D., Goldader, J. D., Delgado, R. M. G., Robert, C., Kune, D. F., de Mello, D. F., Devost, D., & Heckman, T. M. (1999) · The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series · doi:10.1086/313233 · Cited by 4,126
Dunkley, J., Komatsu, E., Nolta, M. R., Spergel, D. N., Larson, D., Hinshaw, G., Page, L., Bennett, C. L., Gold, B., Jarosik, N., et al. (2009) · The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series · doi:10.1088/0067-0049/180/2/306 · Cited by 1,787
Kogut, A., Spergel, D. N., Barnes, C., Bennett, C. L., Halpern, M., Hinshaw, G., Jarosik, N., Limon, M., Meyer, S. S., Page, L., et al. (2003) · The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series · doi:10.1086/377219 · Cited by 938
Search for Time Variation of the Fine Structure Constant
Webb, J. K., Flambaum, V. V., Churchill, C. W., Drinkwater, M. J., & Barrow, J. D. (1999) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.82.884 · Cited by 754
Synthetic properties of starburst galaxies
Leitherer, C., & Heckman, T. M. (1995) · The Astrophysical Journal Supplement Series · doi:10.1086/192112 · Cited by 672 · cited 2×
“…and supernovae depend on the rate of star formation and the Initial Mass Function of the stars, which may have a lower upper mass cutoff in starbursts compared with normal galaxies (Leitherer and Heckman, 1995), or may be dominated by massive stars if the metallicity is low (Bromm and Loeb, 2003).”
BackgroundOstriker, J. P., & McKee, C. F. (1988) · Reviews of Modern Physics · doi:10.1103/revmodphys.60.1 · Cited by 436
Srianand, R., Chand, H., Petitjean, P., & Aracil, B. (2004) · Physical Review Letters · doi:10.1103/physrevlett.92.121302 · Cited by 335
Probing the cosmological variation of the fine-structure constant: Results based on VLT-UVES sample
Chand, H., Srianand, R., Petitjean, P., & Aracil, B. (2004) · Astronomy & Astrophysics · doi:10.1051/0004-6361:20035701 · Cited by 239 · cited 1×
“Chand et al. (2004) and Srianand et al. (2004) report ∆α/α = (−0.6± 0.6)× 10−6 over the redshift range 0.4 < z < 2.3.”
Influential
Cited by
The Dark Energy Survey: more than dark energy – an overview
(2016) · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society · doi:10.1093/mnras/stw641 · Cited by 1,019
Desjacques, V., Jeong, D., & Schmidt, F. (2018) · Physics Reports · doi:10.1016/j.physrep.2017.12.002 · Cited by 817
De re metallica: the cosmic chemical evolution of galaxies
Maiolino, R., & Mannucci, F. (2019) · The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review · doi:10.1007/s00159-018-0112-2 · Cited by 697
Bromm, V., & Yoshida, N. (2011) · Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics · doi:10.1146/annurev-astro-081710-102608 · Cited by 512
THE COSMIC ORIGINS SPECTROGRAPH
Green, J. C., Froning, C. S., Osterman, S., Ebbets, D., Heap, S. H., Leitherer, C., Linsky, J. L., Savage, B. D., Sembach, K., Michael Shull, J., et al. (2012) · The Astrophysical Journal · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/744/1/60 · Cited by 485
Metadata
- Authors
- Meiksin, A. A.
- Venue
- Reviews of Modern Physics
- Publisher
- American Physical Society (APS)
- Published
- 2009-10-05
- Volume
- 81
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 1405-1469
- ISSN
- 0034-6861 (ISSN-L)
- 1539-0756
- OpenAlex
- W2153161644
- Cited by
- 344
- References
- 9
- FWCI
- 7.88
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
How to cite
Cite CoChat for the checks on this page, and the paper for its own findings.
- This page
- CoChat. (2026). Citation check: The physics of the intergalactic medium. https://app.cochat.ai/papers/10.1103/revmodphys.81.1405
- The paper
- Meiksin, A. A. (2009). The physics of the intergalactic medium. Reviews of Modern Physics. https://doi.org/10.1103/revmodphys.81.1405
Data sources
Bibliographic data: Semantic Scholar, OpenAlex, Crossref.
Contains information from the Semantic Scholar Academic Graph Datasets, made available under the ODC Attribution License (ODC-BY 1.0).
Semantic Scholar’s data is described in: Kinney, R., et al. (2023). The Semantic Scholar Open Data Platform. arXiv:2301.10140.
