The Chandra Deep Protocluster Survey: Lyα Blobs are powered by heating, not cooling

Abstract

We present the results of a 400ks Chandra survey of 29 extended Ly-alpha emitting nebulae (Ly-alpha Blobs, LABs) in the z=3.09 proto-cluster in the SSA22 field. We detect luminous X-ray counterparts in five LABs, implying a large fraction of active galactic nuclei (AGN) in LABs, f_AGN = 17% down to L_2-32keV ~ 10^44 erg/s. All of the AGN appear to be heavily obscured, with spectral indices implying obscuring column densities of N_H > 10^23 cm^-2. The AGN fraction should be considered a lower limit, since several more LABs not detected with Chandra show AGN signatures in their mid-infrared emission. We show that the UV luminosities of the AGN are easily capable of powering the extended Ly-alpha emission via photo-ionization alone. When combined with the UV flux from a starburst component, and energy deposited by mechanical feedback, we demonstrate that 'heating' by a central source, rather than gravitational cooling is the most likely power source of LABs. We argue that all LABs could be powered in this manner, but that the luminous host galaxies are often just below the sensitivity limits of current instrumentation, or are heavily obscured. No individual LABs show evidence for extended X-ray emission, and a stack equivalent to a >9Ms exposure of an average LAB also yields no statistical detection of a diffuse X-ray component. The resulting diffuse X-ray/Ly-alpha luminosity limit implies there is no hot (T>10^7 K) gas component in these halos, and also rules out inverse Compton scattering of cosmic microwave background photons, or local far-infrared photons, as a viable power source for LABs.