Princeton University SFIR: Star Formation/ISM Rendezvous

I will describe our recent paper Oren+ 2024 arXiv2403.09476 in which we analyze recent observations of the the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich (tSZ) effect arising in the circumgalactic medium (CGM) of L* galaxies. We make use of analytic models and simulations.  The observations imply steep radial electron  pressure profiles, with baryon fractions exceeding half the cosmic values expected for the dark-matter halos. An isentropic equation of state is favored over an isothermal CGM gas distribution. The tSZ signals are broadly consistent with hot-gas high-ionization metal absorbers such as OVI. The Illustris TNG100 simulation underpredicts the observed tSZ strengths suggesting that the simulation is ejecting too much gas from the galaxy halos.