Related papers: X-ray absorption towards high-redshift sources: pr…
We present the preliminary results from two new surveys of blazars that have direct implications on the GLAST detection of extragalactic sources from two different perspectives: microwave selection and a combined deep X-ray/radio selection.…
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…
We investigate the relationships between the cool circumgalactic medium (CGM), traced by Ca II absorption lines, and galaxy properties at $z<0.4$ using $\sim900{,}000$ galaxy-quasar pairs within $200\,\rm kpc$ from the Year 1 data of the…
We have undertaken a survey for HI 21-cm absorption within the host galaxies of z ~ 1.2 - 1.5 radio sources, in the search of the cool neutral gas currently "missing" at z > 1. This deficit is believed to be due to the optical selection of…
The gamma-ray burst (GRB) 050904 at z = 6.3 provides the first opportunity of probing the intergalactic medium (IGM) by GRBs at the epoch of the reionization. Here we present a spectral modeling analysis of the optical afterglow spectrum…
We present a Bayesian inference on the neutral hydrogen fraction of the intergalactic medium (IGM), $x_{\textrm{HI}}$, at $z \sim$ 6-8 using the properties of Lyman break galaxies during the Epoch of Reionization. We use large samples of…
The circumgalactic medium (CGM) plays a crucial role in galaxy evolution as it fuels star formation, retains metals ejected from the galaxies, and hosts gas flows in and out of galaxies. For Milky Way-type and more massive galaxies, the…
The radiation background produced by the 21 cm spin-flip transition of neutral hydrogen at high redshifts can be a pristine probe of fundamental physics and cosmology. At z~30-300, the intergalactic medium (IGM) is visible in 21 cm…
The reionization of hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) is a crucial landmark in the history of the universe, but the processes through which it occurs remain mysterious. In particular, recent numerical and analytic work suggest that…
The bulk of cosmic matter resides in a dilute reservoir that fills the space between galaxies, the intergalactic medium (IGM). The history of this reservoir is intimately tied to the cosmic histories of structure formation, star formation,…
Most of the baryons in the low-redshift universe reside in a warm/hot component which is difficult to detect with standard absorption/emission line techniques. We propose to use quasar refractive scintillation as an useful, complementary…
It is widely believed that the cool gas clouds traced by MgII absorption, within a velocity offset of 5000 km/s relative to the background quasar are mostly associated with the quasar itself, whereas the absorbers seen at larger velocity…
We present XMM-Newton spectral analysis of all 38 Seyfert galaxies from the Palomar spectroscopic sample of galaxies. These are found at distances of up to 67 Mpc and cover the absorbed 2-10 keV luminosity range ~10^38-10^43 ergs/s. Our aim…
Radiation in the extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and soft X-ray holds clues to the location of the missing baryons, the energetics in stellar feedback processes, and the cosmic enrichment history. Additionally, EUV and soft X-ray photons help…
We present a new calculation of the intergalactic $\gamma$-ray pair-production absorption coefficient as a function of both energy and redshift up to the redshift of 3C279, z = 0.54. In reexamining this problem, we make use of new…
The conventional wisdom that the rate of incidence of Mg II absorption systems, dN/dz (excluding `associated systems' having velocity beta*c relative to the AGN of less than ~5000 km/s) is totally independent of the background AGN, has been…
We quantify and discuss the footprints of neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) on the spectra of high-redshift (z ~ 6) sources, using mock spectra generated from hydrodynamical simulations of the IGM. We show that it should be…
We study quasar proximity zones in the redshift range $5.77 \leq z \leq 6.54$ by homogeneously analyzing $34$ medium resolution spectra, encompassing both archival and newly obtained data, and exploiting recently updated systemic redshift…
The detection of high-redshift ($z>$3) blazars enables the study of the evolution of the most luminous relativistic jets over cosmic time. More importantly, high-redshift blazars tend to host massive black holes and can be used to constrain…
We study the internal structure of the Circum-Galactic Medium (CGM), using 29 spectra of 13 gravitationally lensed quasars with image separation angles of a few arcseconds, which correspond to 100 pc to 10 kpc in physical distances. After…