Related papers: Growth and anisotropy of ionization fronts near hi…
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…
Cosmic reionization progresses as HII regions form around sources of ionizing radiation. Their average size grows continuously until they percolate and complete reionization. We demonstrate how this typical growth can be calculated around…
We present results from a large volume simulation of Hydrogen reionization. We combine 3d radiative transfer calculations and an N-body simulation, describing structure formation in the intergalactic medium, to detail the growth of HII…
Light travel time delays distort the apparent shapes of HII regions surrounding bright quasars during early stages of cosmic reionization. Individual HII regions may remain undetectable in forthcoming redshifted 21 cm experiments. However,…
We analyze the size evolution of HII regions around 27 quasars between z=5.7 to 6.4 ('quasar near-zones' or NZ). We include more sources than previous studies, and we use more accurate redshifts for the host galaxies, with 8 CO molecular…
We use state-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations combined with a 1D radiative transfer code to assess the extent to which the highly ionized regions observed close to z~6 quasars, which we refer to as near-zones, can constrain the…
The reionisation of the intergalactic medium (IGM) was driven by the first stars, galaxies, and accreting black holes. However, the relative importance of these sources and the efficiency by which ionising photons escape into the IGM remain…
We investigate the possibility of constraining the ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) close to the end of reionization (z ~ 6) by measuring the size of the HII regions in high-z quasars spectra. We perform a combination of…
We discuss currently available observational constraints on the reionization history of the intergalactic medium (IGM), and the extent to which accreting black holes (BHs) can help explain these observations. We show new evidence, based on…
Lyman-alpha forest absorption spectra towards quasars at z ~ 6 show regions of enhanced transmission close to their source. Several authors have argued that the apparently small sizes of these regions indicate that quasar ionization fronts…
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…
The infrared detection of a z>7 quasar has opened up a new window to directly probe the IGM during the epoch of reionization. In this paper we theoretically consider the possibility of detecting the ionized bubble around a z=8 quasar using…
A key physical quantity during reionization is the size of HII regions. Previous studies found a characteristic bubble size which increases rapidly during reionization, with apparent agreement between simulations and analytic excursion set…
We develop a new method to determine the distance between a high-redshift galaxy and a foreground screen of atomic hydrogen. In a partially neutral universe, and assuming spherical symmetry, this equates to the radius of a ionized 'bubble'…
The HII regions around quasars and galaxies at redshifts beyond the epoch of reionisation will provide prime targets for upcoming 21cm campaigns using a new generation of low-frequency radio observatories. Here we show that the boundaries…
We assess the impact of inhomogeneous reionization on detection of HII regions surrounding luminous high redshift quasars using planned low frequency radio telescopes. Our approach is to implement a semi-numerical scheme to calculate the…
An important characteristic of cosmic hydrogen reionization is the growth of ionized gas bubbles surrounding early luminous objects. Ionized bubble sizes are beginning to be probed using Lyman-$\alpha$ emission from high-redshift galaxies,…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is discovering an increasing number of galaxies well into the early stages of the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). Many of these galaxies are clustered with strong Lyman alpha (Ly$\alpha$) emission,…
Observations of high-redshift quasars hosting billion solar mass black holes at $z\gtrsim6$ challenge our understanding of early supermassive black hole (SMBH) growth. In this work, we conduct a near-infrared spectroscopic study of $19$…
Constraints on the time-scales of quasar activity are key to understanding the formation and growth of supermassive black holes (SMBHs), quasar triggering mechanisms, and possible feedback effects on their host galaxies. However,…