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M. Rauch (Carnegie Observatories), W.L.W. Sargent, T.A. Barlow (California Institute of Technology)
We present results from a Keck HIRES survey of high ionization metal absorption systems as seen against multiple images of gravitationally lensed QSOs. The purpose of the survey is to derive constraints on the spatial and velocity structure of diffuse highly ionized gas at high redshift to study the processes responsible for the metal enrichment of the intergalactic medium. Preliminary results indicate that there is a minimum size for CIV absorbing clouds on the order of a few hundred parsecs, below which the gas has little spatial or velocity structure. The turbulence in the gas along and across the lines of sight as a function of spatial separation is found to be far less than in actively starforming regions in our galaxy. We derive rates of energy input and dissipation for the metal-enriched gas and discuss what these results tell us about the duty cycle of extragalactic metal enrichment.