Related papers: Radiative transfer effects during primordial heliu…
We report the first unambiguous observational evidence of Rydberg Enhanced Recombination (RER), a potentially important recombination mechanism that has hitherto been unexplored in low-temperature photoionized plasmas. RER shares…
We have developed a modular semi-numerical code that computes the time and spatially dependent ionization of neutral hydrogen (HI), neutral (HeI) and singly ionized helium (HeII) in the intergalactic medium (IGM). The model accounts for…
We investigate the finite nuclear mass corrections in the helium atom in order to resolve a significant disagreement between the $2^3S - 2^3P$ and $2^3S - 2^1S$ transition isotope shifts. These two transitions lead to discrepant results for…
We present the theoretical framework and numerical methods we have implemented to solve the problem of the generation and transfer of polarized radiation in spectral lines out of local thermodynamical equilibrium, while accounting for…
The early reionization (ERE) is supposed to be a physical process which happens after recombination, but before the instantaneous reionization caused by the first generation of stars. We investigate the effect of the ERE on the temperature…
An ionization front expanding into a neutral medium can be slowed-down significantly by recombinations. In cosmological numerical simulations the recombination rate is often computed using a 'clumping factor', that takes into account that…
Helium and hydrogen recombination lines observed in low-metallicity, extragalactic H II regions provide the data used to infer the primordial helium mass fraction, Y_P. The ionization corrections for unseen neutral helium (or hydrogen) are…
The structures produced during the epoch of reionization by the action of radiation on neutral hydrogen are in principle different to those that arise through gravitational growth of initially small perturbations. We explore the difference…
We survey the results of a long-term study of the process of radiative recombination. A rigorous theory of nonrelativistic electron radiative recombination with a hydrogen-like ion is used to calculate the total cross section of the…
We present the results of experiments demonstrating the spectroscopic detection of F\"{o}rster resonance energy transfer from NH$_3$ in the $X\,^1A_1$ ground electronic state to helium atoms in 1s$n$s\,$^3$S$_1$ Rydberg levels, where $n=37$…
Photons emitted during the epochs of Hydrogen ($500 \lesssim z \lesssim 1600$) and Helium recombination ($1600 \lesssim z \lesssim 3500$ for HeII $\rightarrow$ HeI, $5000 \lesssim z \lesssim 8000$ for HeIII $\rightarrow$ HeII) are predicted…
Data on high energy nuclear collisions collected at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider over the past decade have provided convincing evidence that hadronization is quite different in hot nuclear environments compared to p+p collisions. In…
The 21-cm signal from neutral hydrogen serves as a critical tool for unraveling the astrophysical processes that shaped cosmic dawn and the epoch of reionization. We explore the usually overlooked impact of re-scattering of 21-cm photons…
Cosmological hydrogen recombination has recently been the subject of renewed attention because of its importance for predicting the power spectrum of cosmic microwave background anisotropies. It has become clear that it is necessary to…
Based on observations of HII regions and the new computations of the recombination coefficients of the He I lines by Porter et al. (2013) we obtain a primordial helium abundance by mass of $Y_P = 0.2446\pm0.0029$. We consider thirteen…
Spectral lines of helium are commonly observed on the Sun. These observations contain important informations about physical conditions and He/H abundance variations within solar outer structures. The modeling of chromospheric and coronal…
Tseliakhovich & Hirata recently discovered that higher-order corrections to the cosmological linear-perturbation theory lead to supersonic coherent baryonic flows just after recombination (i.e. z~1020), with rms velocities of ~30 km/s…
Interpretation of He II Ly{\alpha} absorption spectra after the epoch of He II reionization requires knowledge of the He II ionizing background. While past work has modelled the evolution of the average background, the standard cosmological…
Radiative charge exchange collisions between a carbon atom C(${}^3$P) and a helium ion He+, both in their ground state, are investigated theoretically. Detailed quantum chemistry calculations are carried out to obtain potential energy…
We present Rico, a code designed to compute the ionization fraction of the Universe during the epoch of hydrogen and helium recombination with an unprecedented combination of speed and accuracy. This is accomplished by training the machine…