Related papers: The Photon Underproduction Crisis
We study the evolution with redshift of the number density of Ly$\alpha$ clouds in a CDM model using numerical simulations including photo-ionization and cooling of the baryonic component. The photo-ionizing flux is consistently taken as…
It has been realised only recently that TeV emission from blazars can significantly heat the intergalactic medium (IGM) by pair-producing high-energy electrons and positrons, which in turn excite vigorous plasma instabilities, leading to a…
Lyman-alpha forest data probing the post-reionization Universe shows surprisingly large opacity fluctuations over rather large ($\ge$50 comoving Mpc/h) spatial scales. We model these fluctuations using a hybrid approach utilizing the large…
We review recent developments in the theory of the Lyman-alpha forest and their implications for the role of the forest as a test of cosmological models. Simulations predict a relatively tight correlation between the local Lya optical depth…
An appealing approach for studying the reionization history of the Universe is to measure the redshift evolution of the Lyman-alpha fraction, the percentage of Lyman-break selected galaxies that emit appreciably in the Ly-alpha line. This…
Recent observations of the Lyman-alpha forest show large-scale spatial variations in the intergalactic Lyman-alpha opacity that grow rapidly with redshift at z>5, far in excess of expectations from empirically motivated models. Previous…
Numerical hydrodynamical simulations are used to predict the expected absorption properties of the Lyman-Alpha forest for a variety of Cold Dark Matter dominated cosmological scenarios: CHDM, OCDM, LCDM, SCDM, and tCDM. Synthetic spectra…
Motivated by the relative lack of neutral hydrogen around Lyman Break Galaxies deduced from recent observations, we investigate the properties of the Lyalpha forest around high redshift galaxies. The study is based on improved numerical SPH…
We analyze the flux power spectrum and its covariance using simulated Lyman alpha forests. We find that pseudo-hydro techniques are good approximations of hydrodynamical simulations at high redshift. However, the pseudo-hydro techniques…
We use a cosmological hydrodynamic simulation of a cold dark matter universe to investigate theoretically the relationship between high redshift galaxies and the Lyman=alpha forest at redshift z=3. Galaxies in the simulation are surrounded…
We present new measurements of the flux power-spectrum P(k) of the $z<0.5$ HI Lyman-$\alpha$ forest spanning scales k ~ 0.001-0.1 s/km. These results were derived from 65 far ultraviolet quasar spectra (resolution R~18000) observed with the…
We analyze the Ly alpha forest properties of a sample of 15 high redshift quasars lying between z = 4.42 and z = 5.75, using high signal-to-noise spectra obtained with ESI on the Keck II 10 m telescope. The distribution of transmissions in…
The forest of Lyman-alpha absorption lines seen in the spectra of distant quasars has become an important probe of the distribution of matter in the Universe. We use large, hydrodynamical simulations from the OWLS project to investigate the…
The inhomogeneous cosmological reionization process leaves tangible imprints in the intergalactic medium down to z=4-5. The Lyman-alpha forest flux power spectrum provides a potentially powerful probe of the epoch of reionization. With the…
Lyman-$\alpha$(Ly$\alpha$) forest in the spectra of distant quasars encodes the information of the underlying cosmic density field at smallest scales. The modelling of the upcoming large and high-fidelity forest data using cosmological…
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…
We investigate the implications of the intergalactic opacity for the evolution of the cosmic UV luminosity density and its sources. Our main constraint is our measurement of the Lya forest opacity at redshifts 2<z<4.2 from 86…
Lyman-alpha (Ly{\alpha}) photons from ionizing sources and cooling radiation undergo a complex resonant scattering process that generates unique spectral signatures in high-redshift galaxies. We present a detailed Ly{\alpha} radiative…
The fraction of ionizing photons that escape from young star-forming galaxies is one of the largest uncertainties in determining the role of galaxies in cosmic reionization. Yet traditional techniques for measuring this fraction are…
The average flux decrement shortward the Ly$_{\alpha}$ emission, due to the well-known ``forest'' of absorptions, has been measured in the spectra of 8 quasars. Quasi-simultaneous optical and IUE observations of the two low redshift quasars…