Related papers: Constraints on First-Light Ionizing Sources from O…
Cosmic reionization holds the key to understand structure formation in the Universe, and can inform us about the properties of the first sources, as their star formation efficiency and escape fraction of ionizing photons. By combining the…
We examine the significance of the first metal-free stars (Pop III) for the cosmological reionization of HI and HeII. These stars have unusually hard spectra, with the integrated ionizing photon rates from a Pop III stellar cluster for HI…
The ARCADE2 and LWA1 experiments have claimed an excess over the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) at low radio frequencies. If the cosmological high-redshift contribution to this radio background is between 0.1% and 22% of the CMB at 1.42…
We present a new model of the extragalactic background light (EBL) and corresponding gamma-gamma opacity for intergalactic gamma-ray absorption from z = 0 up to z = 10, based on a semi-analytical model of hierarchical galaxy formation that…
Population-III (Pop-III) starformation (SF) is thought to be quenched when the metallicity of the star-forming gas reaches a critical level. At high z, when the general intergalactic medium (IGM) was enriched with metals, the fraction of…
We study the reionization histories where ionizing UV photons are emitted from decaying particles, in addition to usual contributions from stars and quasars, taking account of the fact that the universe is not fully ionized until z = 6 as…
Recent observations show that the measured rates of star formation in the early universe are insufficient to produce re-ionization, and therefore, another source of ionizing photons is required. In this \emph{Letter}, we examine the…
The contribution of stars in galaxies to cosmic reionisation depends on the star formation history in the Universe, the abundance of galaxies during reionisation, the escape fraction of ionising photons and the clumping factor of the…
Details of how the primordial plasma recombined and how the universe later reionized are currently somewhat uncertain. This uncertainty can restrict the accuracy of cosmological parameter measurements from the Cosmic Microwave Background…
Recently, it was pointed out that invoking a large value of the CMB optical depth, $\tau_{\rm CMB} = 0.09$, could help resolve tensions between DESI DR2 BAO data and the CMB. This is larger than the value of $\tau_{\rm CMB} = 0.058$…
We perform an analysis of the cosmic reionization in the standard cold dark matter (CDM) paradigm and in alternative dark matter scenarios. Building upon the work of Corasaniti et al. (2017), we predict the reionization history for CDM, for…
The first stars and quasars are known sources of hard ionizing radiation in the first billion years of the Universe. We examine the joint effects of X-rays and hard UV radiation from such first-light sources on the hydrogen and helium…
Recent suggestions of a "photon underproduction crisis" (Kollmeier \etal\ 2014) have generated concern over the intensity and spectrum of ionizing photons in the metagalactic ultraviolet background (UVB). The balance of hydrogen…
Standard analyses of the reionization history of the universe from Planck cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization measurements consider only the overall optical depth to electron scattering ($\tau$), and further assume a step-like…
This conference proceedings paper provides a short summary of the constraints presented in Menci et al. 2016, 2017 on the mass of thermal WDM candidates, and of the results presented in Romanello et al. 2021 on how Reionization scenarios…
[abridged] We aim to constrain the stellar initial mass function (IMF) during the epoch of reionization. To this purpose, we build up a semi-empirical model for the reionization history of the Universe, based on various ingredients: the…
Motivated by recent evidence that the epoch of reionization of hydrogen may have ended at a redshift as low as z~6 we consider the detectability of the sources responsible for this reionization. The main idea is that reionization places…
An analysis of negative radiative feedback from resident stars in minihalos is performed. It is found that the most effective mechanism to suppress star formation is provided by infrared photons from resident stars via photo-detachment of…
Massive neutrinos modify the expansion history of the universe and suppress the structure formation below their free streaming scale. Cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations at small angular scales can be used to constrain the total…
By phenomenologically describing the high-redshift star formation history, i.e., $\dot{\rho}_{*}(z)\propto[(1+z)/4.5]^{-\alpha}$, and semi-analytically calculating the fractions of high-redshift Pop I/II and Pop III stars, we investigate…