Non-equilibrium ionization in the multiphase circumgalactic medium -- impact on quasar absorption-line analyses

Abstract: This paper presents an updated framework for studying the ionizing conditions and elemental abundances of photoionized, metal-enriched quasar absorption systems. The standard assumption of ionization equilibrium invoked in absorption line analyses requires gas to cool on longer timescales than ionic recombination (t_cool >> t_rec). However, this assumption may not be valid at high metallicities due to enhanced cooling losses. This work presents a suite of time-dependent photoionization (TDP) models that self-consistently solve for the ionization state of rapidly cooling gas irradiated by the extragalactic ultraviolet background (UVB). The updated framework explores various revised UVBs from recent studies, a range of initial temperatures, and different elemental abundance patterns to quantify the effects of TDP on the observed ion fractions. A metal-enriched ($\mathrm{[\alpha/H]}=0.6_{-0.1}^{+0.2}$) C IV absorption system at z ~ 1 previously studied using photoionization equilibrium (PIE) models is re-examined under the TDP framework. The main findings are as follows: (1) varying prescriptions for the underlying UVB or adopting initial temperatures T_0 < 1e6 K change TDP ion fractions by up to a factor of three, but the adopted relative elemental abundance pattern affects ion fractions by at most 40%; (2) the inferred gas densities are consistent between PIE and TDP, but under TDP solar metallicity cannot be ruled out at more than 2-$\sigma$ significance and a modest non-solar $\mathrm{[C/\alpha]} = 0.2$ is needed to explain the observed relative ion abundances. Extending the TDP analyses to a larger sample of super-solar absorption components with high signal-to-noise absorption spectra is needed to quantify the fraction of metal absorbers originating in rapid cooling gas.