Luca Zappacosta: Looking for the missing baryons in the local Universe

Luca Zappacosta

INAF - Astronomical Observatory of Rome

About half of the ordinary matter is still missing from the census of the baryons in the local universe. Cosmological simulations show that they should be hidden in the large-scale filamentary distribution of the cosmic web as warm-hot (logT=5-7 K) tenuous (10^-6 - 10^-5 cm^-3) intergalactic gas (WHIM) weakly emitting in the Far UV/X-rays and therefore very difficult to detect with current instruments. Focusing on the X-rays, where the majority of the missing baryons can be identified, I will show and discuss the most promising WHIM detections.

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