Related papers: Cosmic reionization after Planck II: contribution …
Quasars are the most luminous non-transient sources in the epoch of cosmological reionization (i.e., which ended a billion years after the Big Bang, corresponding to a redshift of z ~ 5), and are powerful probes of the inter-galactic medium…
We use a combination of analytic and numerical arguments to consider the impact of quasar photo-heating during HeII reionisation on the thermal evolution of the intergalactic medium (IGM). We demonstrate that rapid (\Delta z< 0.1-0.2),…
I review recent observational and theoretical progress in our understanding of the cosmic evolution of luminous sources. Largely due to a combination of deep HST imaging, Keck spectroscopy, and COBE far-IR background measurements, new…
The rapidly declining population of bright quasars at z~3 appears to make an increasingly small contribution to the ionising background at the HI Lyman limit. It is then generally though that massive stars in (pre-)galactic systems may…
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…
We study the reionisation of the Universe by stellar sources using a numerical approach that combines fast 3D radiative transfer calculations with high resolution hydrodynamical simulations. Ionising fluxes for the sources are derived from…
Quasars that allow the study of IGM He II are very rare, since they must be at high redshift along sightlines free of substantial hydrogen absorption, but recent work has dramatically expanded the number of such quasars known. We analyze…
We use hydrodynamic simulations post-processed with the radiative-transfer code RADAMESH to assess recent claims that the low HeII opacity observed in z>3 quasar spectra may be incompatible with models of HeII reionization driven by the…
The protagonists of cosmic reionization remain elusive. Faint star-forming galaxies are leading candidates because they are numerous and may have significant ionizing photon escape fractions ($f_{esc}$). Here we update this picture via an…
In this paper we discuss the contribution of different astrophysical sources to the ionization of neutral hydrogen at different redshifts. We critically revise the arguments in favour/against a substantial contribution of Active Galactic…
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-$\alpha$ damping wings towards quasars are a highly sensitive probe of the neutral hydrogen (HI) content in the foreground intergalactic medium (IGM), not only constraining the global timing of reionization but also the \textit{local}…
Recent observations of z~6 quasars and the cosmic microwave background imply a complex history to cosmic reionization. Such a history requires some form of feedback to extend reionization over a long time interval, but the nature of the…
The cosmic ionizing emissivity from star-forming galaxies has long been anchored to UV luminosity functions. Here we introduce an emissivity framework based on Ly$\alpha$ emitters (LAEs), which naturally hones in on the subset of galaxies…
In this paper, we address which sources contributed most of the reionizing photons. Our argument assumes that the reionization ended around z ~ 6 and that it was a relatively quick process, i.e., that there was a non-negligible fraction of…
Investigating how small-scale physical processes shape large-scale astrophysical phenomena is one of the key science themes of the Astro2020 decadal Survey. An example of this interplay is Cosmic Reionization, where ionizing photons from…
If dark matter decay or annihilate, a large amount of energy and particles would be released into the cosmic plasma. Therefore, they could modify the thermal and ionization history of our universe, then leave footprints on the cosmic…
Finding the sources responsible for the hydrogen reionization is one of the most pressing issues in cosmology. Bright QSOs are known to ionize their surrounding neighborhood, but they are too few to ensure the required HI ionizing…
We introduce a new project to understand helium reionization using fully coupled $N$-body, hydrodynamics, and radiative transfer simulations. This project aims to capture correctly the thermal history of the intergalactic medium (IGM) as a…
In this work we investigate the properties of the sources that reionized the intergalactic medium (IGM) in the high-redshift Universe. Using a semi-analytical model aimed at reproducing galaxies and black holes in the first 1.5 Gyr of the…