Carbon envelopes around merging galaxies at z ~ 4.5

Context. Galaxies evolve through a dynamic exchange of material with their immediate surrounding environment, the so-called circumgalactic medium (CGM). Understanding the physics of gas flows and the nature of the CGM is fundamental to studying galaxy evolution, especially at 4 ≤ z ≤ 6 (i.e., after the Epoch of Reionization) when galaxies rapidly assembled their masses and reached their chemical maturity. Galactic outflows are predicted to enrich the CGM with metals, although it has also been suggested that gas stripping in systems undergoing a major merger may play a role. Aims. In this work, we explore the metal enrichment of the medium around merging galaxies at z ∼ 4.5, observed by the ALMA Large Program to INvestigate [CII] at Early times (ALPINE). To do so, we study the nature of the [CII] 158 μm emission in the CGM around these systems, using simulations to help disentangle the mechanisms contributing to the CGM metal pollution. Methods. By adopting an updated classification of major merger systems in the ALPINE survey, we selected and analyzed merging galaxies whose components can be spatially and/or spectrally resolved in a robust way. This makes it possible to distinguish between the [CII] emission coming from the single components of the system and that coming from the system as a whole. We also made use of the dustyGadget cosmological simulation to select synthetic analogs of observed galaxies and guide the interpretation of the observational results. Results. We find a large diffuse [CII] envelope (≳20 kpc) embedding all the merging systems, with at least 25% of the total [CII] emission coming from the medium between the galaxies. Using predictions from dustyGadget, we suggest that this emission has a multi-fold nature, with dynamical interactions between galaxies playing a major role in stripping the gas and enriching the medium with heavy elements.