Related papers: A Cosmic UV/X-ray Background Model Update
Determinations of the UV luminosity function of AGN at high redshifts are important for constraining the AGN contribution to reionization and understanding the growth of supermassive black holes. Recent inferences of the luminosity function…
An ionizing UV background (UVB) inhibits gas accretion and photo-evaporates gas from the shallow potential wells of small, dwarf galaxies. During cosmological reionization, this effect can result in negative feedback: suppressing…
We put constraints on the main cosmological parameters of different spatially flat cosmological models by combining the recent clustering results of XMM-Newton soft (0.5-2 keV) X-ray sources, which have a redshift distribution with median…
Absorption spectra of high redshift quasars suggest that the reionisation of cosmic hydrogen was complete near z~6. The dominant sources of ionising photons responsible for this reionisation are generally thought to be stars and quasars. In…
Improved measurement of the Cosmic Microwave Background polarization from Planck allows a detailed study of reionization beyond the average optical depth. The lower value of the optical depth disfavours an early onset and an early…
Using a sample of 228 optically selected Active Galactic Nuclei (AGNs) in the 0.01-6.3 redshift range with a high fraction of X-ray detections (81-86%), we study the relation between rest-frame UV and soft X-ray emission and its evolution…
We present sub-mm photometry for 11 Hyperluminous Infrared Galaxies (HLIRGs) and use radiative transfer models for starbursts and AGN to investigate the IR emission. In all sources both a starburst and AGN are required to explain the IR…
We present measurements of the rest-frame ultraviolet luminosity function at redshifts $z=3$, $z=4$ and $z=5$, using 96894, 38655 and 7571 sources respectively to map the transition between AGN and galaxy-dominated ultraviolet emission…
The first, self-consistent calculations of the cosmological H_2 dissociating UV background produced during the epoch of reionization (EOR) by the sources of reionization are presented. Large-scale radiative transfer simulations of…
We have performed proximity effect analysis of low and high resolution data, considering detailed frequency and redshift dependence of the AGN spectra processed through galactic and intergalactic material. We show that such a background…
The amplitude of the ionizing background that pervades the intergalactic medium (IGM) at the end of the epoch of reionization provides a valuable constraint on the emissivity of the sources which reionized the Universe. While measurements…
Among the many different pieces of physics that go into simulations of the circumgalactic medium (CGM), the metagalactic ultraviolet background (UVB) plays a significant role in determining the ionization state of different metal species.…
Recent observations suggest that helium became fully ionized around redshift z ~ 3. The HeII optical depth derived from the Lyman-alpha forest decreases substantially from this period to z ~ 2; moreover, it fluctuates strongly near z ~ 3…
We investigate the properties of the galaxies that reionized the Universe and the history of cosmic reionization using the "Evolution and Assembly of GaLaxies and their environments" (EAGLE) cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We…
Motivated by recent evidence that the epoch of reionization of hydrogen may have ended at a redshift as low as z~6 we consider the detectability of the sources responsible for this reionization. The main idea is that reionization places…
We present an observational test of the spectrum of the ionizing background at z~5; the test is sufficiently sensitive to determine whether Pop II or Pop III stars are the dominant source of ionizing radiation. The ionizing background at…
Observational studies indicate that the intergalactic medium (IGM) is highly ionized up to redshifts just over 6. A number of models have been developed to describe the process of reionization and the effects of the ionizing photons from…
We measure the effective optical depth of HeII Ly\alpha\ absorption \tau$_\mathsf{eff,HeII}$ at 2.3<z<3.5 in 17 UV-transmitting quasars observed with UV spectrographs on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The median \tau$_\mathsf{eff,HeII}$…
We present a semi-empirical model for the evolving far-infrared to ultraviolet diffuse background produced by stars in galaxies. The model is designed to reproduce the results of deep galaxy surveys, and therefore may be considered as a…
Hydrogen in the Universe was (re)ionised between redshifts $z \approx 10$ and $z \approx 6$. The nature of the sources of the ionising radiation is hotly debated, with faint galaxies below current detection limits regarded as prime…