Understanding galaxies and their gas

The circumgalactic medium is a vast halo of gas surrounding galaxies comprised of accreting gas from the intergalactic medium, outflows from stellar winds and recycled gas. Understanding how these gas flows enter and exit galaxies is key to our understanding of galaxy evolution. We have found that the metal content of accreting or outflowing gas is similar, suggesting that metallicity is not a useful tracer of accretion. We have also investigated group environments and found that there is less highly ionized gas and its kinematically narrower than isolated environments. Furthermore, the metallicity of group environments is similar to isolated environments.