Related papers: Constraints on First-Light Ionizing Sources from O…
The redshifted light of the first (Pop III) stars might substantially contribute to the near infrared background (NIRB). By fitting recent data with models including up-to-date Pop III stellar spectra, we find that such stars can indeed…
The temporal evolution of the ionizing UV background radiation field at high redshift provides a probe of the evolution of the early star formation rate. By comparing the observed levels of absorption in the highest redshift quasar spectra…
We use new studies of the cosmic evolution of star-forming galaxies to estimate the production rate of ionizing photons from hot, massive stars at low and intermediate redshifts. The luminosity function of blue galaxies in the Canada-France…
We simulate a plausible cosmological model in considerable physical and numerical detail through the successive phases of reheating (at 10<z<20), formation of Pop III stars at z=15 (due to molecular hydrogen cooling), with subsequent…
The epoch of reionization (EoR) corresponds to a 'cosmic phase transition', when the neutral intergalactic medium (IGM) becomes ionized by the first stars and/or AGN. While the discoveries of Gunn-Peterson (GP) absorption troughs in the…
The early reionization of the intergalactic medium, which is favored from the WMAP temperature-polarization cross-correlations, contests the validity of the standard scenario of structure formation in the cold dark matter cosmogony. It is…
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 and set important constraints on the stellar birthrate at high redshifts.…
Modelling reionization often requires significant assumptions about the properties of ionizing sources. Here, we infer the total output of hydrogen-ionizing photons (the ionizing emissivity, $\dot{N}_\textrm{ion}$) at $z=4-14$ from current…
The recent measurement by WMAP of a large electron scattering optical depth tau_e = 0.17 +- 0.04 is consistent with a simple model of reionization in which the intergalactic medium (IGM) is ionized at redshift z ~ 15, and remains highly…
We study the observed cosmic ionizing background as a constraint on the nature of the sources responsible for the reionization of the Universe. In earlier work, we showed that extrapolations of the Ultra-Violet Luminosity Function (LF) of…
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 Epoch of Reionization (EoR) depends on the complex astrophysics governing the birth and evolution of the first galaxies and structures in the intergalactic medium. EoR models rely on cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations, and…
An analysis of the physics-rich endgame of reionization at $z=5.7$ is performed, utilizing jointly the observations of the Ly$\alpha$ forest, the mean free path of ionizing photons, the luminosity function of galaxies and new physical…
Early photoionization of the intergalactic medium is discussed in a nearly model-independent way, in order to investigate whether early structures corresponding to rare Gaussian peaks in a CDM model can photoionize the intergalactic medium…
The standard cosmological model, with its six independent parameters, successfully describes our observable Universe. One of these parameters, the optical depth to reionization $\tau_\mathrm{reio}$, represents the scatterings that Cosmic…
We have modelled the process of reionization of the IGM by photoionization by galaxies, in order to predict the epoch of reionization. We use a sophisticated semi-analytic model to track the formation of galaxies. Our study represents a…
It is shown that, in addition to the Thomson scattering, the absorption due to the electron-electron, electron-ion and the electron -atom collisions in a partially ionized cosmic plasma would also contribute to the optical depth of the…
The high ionization level and universal metallicity (1% solar) of the intergalactic gas at redshifts z<5 implies that nonlinear structure had started to form in the universe at earlier times than we currently probe. In Cold Dark Matter…
Unless properly corrected for, the existence of intergalactic dust will introduce a redshift dependent magnitude offset to standard candle sources. This would lead to overestimated luminosity distances compared to a dust-free universe and…
The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) free-free foreground emission map is used to identify diffuse ionized regions (DIR) in the Galaxy (Rahman & Murray 2010). It has been found that the 18 most luminous WMAP sources produce more…