Related papers: The History and Morphology of Helium Reionization
The history of the transition from a neutral intergalactic medium (IGM) to one that is almost fully ionized can reveal the character of cosmological ionizing sources. We study the evolution of the volume filling factor of HII and HeIII…
We study the reionization of Helium II by quasars using a numerical approach that combines 3D radiative transfer calculations with cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. Sources producing the ionizing radiation are selected according to…
We consider the early stages of cosmic hydrogen or helium reionization, when ionizing sources were still rare. We show that Poisson fluctuations in the galaxy distribution substantially affected the early bubble size distribution, although…
The history of the transition from a neutral intergalactic medium to one that is almost fully ionized can reveal the character of cosmological ionizing sources. In this talk I will discuss the implications for rival reionization scenarios…
We compute the reionization histories of hydrogen and helium due to the ionizing radiation fields produced by stars and quasars. For the quasars we use a model based on halo-merger rates that reproduces all known properties of the quasar…
Observations of resolved HeII Lyman alpha absorption in spectra of two QSO's suggest that the epoch of helium ionization occurred at z~3. Proximity zones in the spectra of the quasars (z=3.18, 3.285) at 304 A resemble Stromgren spheres,…
Cosmic (hydrogen) reionization marks one of the major phase transitions of the universe at redshift z >= 6. During this epoch, hydrogen atoms in the intergalactic medium (IGM) were ionized by Lyman continuum (LyC) photons. However, it…
The reionization of the second electron of helium (HeII) leaves important imprints on the thermal and ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM). Observational evidence suggests that HeII reionization ended at $z \simeq 3$ due to…
Absorption spectra of high redshift quasars suggest that the reionisation of cosmic hydrogen was complete near z~6. The dominant sources of ionising photons responsible for this reionisation are generally thought to be stars and quasars. In…
The radiation background above the ionization edge of HeII varies strongly during and after helium reionization, because the attenuation length of such photons is relatively short (<40 Mpc) and because the ionizing sources (quasars) are…
One of the most dramatic signatures of the reionization era may be the enormous ionized bubbles around luminous quasars (with radii reaching ~40 comoving Mpc), which may survive as "fossil'' ionized regions long after their source shuts…
We measure the effective optical depth of HeII Ly\alpha\ absorption \tau$_\mathsf{eff,HeII}$ at 2.3<z<3.5 in 17 UV-transmitting quasars observed with UV spectrographs on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The median \tau$_\mathsf{eff,HeII}$…
We present general properties of ionized hydrogen (HII) bubbles and their growth based on a state-of-the-art large-scale (100 Mpc/h) cosmological radiative transfer simulation. The simulation resolves all halos with atomic cooling at the…
We examine the constraints on soft X-ray emissions from the reionization era. It has generally been assumed that the Universe was reionized by ultraviolet photons from massive stars. However, it has been argued that X-ray photons associated…
In the light of the recent Planck downward revision of the electron scattering optical depth, and of the discovery of a faint AGN population at $z > 4$, we reassess the actual contribution of quasars to cosmic reionization. To this aim, we…
We use the photon flux and absorption tracer algorithm presented in Katz et al.~2018, to characterise the contribution of haloes of different mass and stars of different age and metallicity to the reionization of the Universe. We employ a…
Using hydrodynamical simulations coupled to a radiative transfer code, we study the additional heating effects in the intergalactic medium (IGM) produced by $z\sim 6$ quasars in their near-zones. If helium is predominantly in HeII to begin…
This thesis investigates the Epoch of Cosmic Reionization (EoR), a key period in the early Universe when the first luminous sources formed and their radiation transformed the intergalactic medium (IGM) from neutral to ionized. Understanding…
We introduce a new project to understand helium reionization using fully coupled $N$-body, hydrodynamics, and radiative transfer simulations. This project aims to capture correctly the thermal history of the intergalactic medium (IGM) as a…
We assess a model of late cosmic reionization in which the ionizing background radiation arises entirely from high redshift quasars and other active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The low optical depth to Thomson scattering reported by the Planck…