Related papers: Forecasting constraints on the high-z IGM thermal …
The ultraviolet background (UVB) emitted by quasars and galaxies governs the ionization and thermal state of the intergalactic medium (IGM), regulates the formation of high-redshift galaxies, and is thus a key quantity for modeling cosmic…
Our understanding of the intergalactic medium at redshifts $z=5$-$6$ has improved considerably in the last few years due to the discovery of quasars with $z>6$ that enable Lyman-$\alpha$ forest studies at these redshifts. A realisation from…
We derive new constraints on models of decaying and annihilating dark matter (DM) by requiring that the energy injected into the intergalactic medium (IGM) not overheat it at late times, when measurements of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest…
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…
The Ly$\alpha$ forest (LAF) at $z>5$ probes the thermal and reionization history of the intergalactic medium (IGM) and the nature of dark matter, but its interpretation requires comparison to cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. At…
The observed scatter in intergalactic Lyman-$\alpha$ opacity at $z \lesssim 6$ requires large-scale fluctuations in the neutral fraction of the intergalactic medium (IGM) after the expected end of reionization. Post-reionization models that…
It appears inevitable that reionization processes would have produced large-scale temperature fluctuations in the intergalactic medium. Using toy temperature models and detailed heating histories from cosmological simulations of HeII…
The intensity of the Cosmic UV background (UVB), coming from all sources of ionising photons such as star-forming galaxies and quasars, determines the thermal evolution and ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) and is,…
We use the Sherwood-Relics suite of hybrid hydrodynamical and radiative transfer simulations to model the effect of inhomogeneous reionisation on the 1D power spectrum of the \Lya forest transmitted flux at redshifts $4.2\leq z \leq 5$.…
Winds from pregalactic starbursts and 'miniquasars' may pollute the IGM with metals and raise its temperature to a high adiabat, and so inhibit the formation of early galaxies. We compute the thermal history of the IGM when it experiences a…
In this paper, we explore the constraints on the reionization history that are provided by current observations of the Lyman-alpha forest and the CMB. Rather than using a particular semi-analytic model, we take the novel approach of…
Absorption spectra of high redshift quasars exhibit an increasingly thick Ly-alpha forest towards z~6. However, the interpretation of these spectra is complicated by the fact that the Ly-alpha optical depth is already large for neutral…
We present new measurements of the free-streaming of warm dark matter (WDM) from Lyman-$\alpha$ flux-power spectra. We use data from the medium resolution, intermediate redshift XQ-100 sample observed with the X-shooter spectrograph ($z=3 -…
Cosmological hydrodynamic simulations can accurately predict the properties of the intergalactic medium (IGM), but only under the condition of retaining high spatial resolution necessary to resolve density fluctuations in the IGM. This…
Lyman-alpha emission from high-redshift galaxies may be a powerful probe of the ionization history of the IGM at z>6: the observed Lyman-alpha emission line is sensitive to the neutral fraction of IGM hydrogen in the range 0.1-1. We present…
We publicly release a new sample of $34$ medium resolution quasar spectra at $5.77\leq z_{\rm em}\leq6.54$ observed with the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager (ESI) on the Keck telescope. This quasar sample represents an ideal laboratory…
The transmission of Lyman-{\alpha} (Ly{\alpha}) in the spectra of distant quasars depends on the density, temperature, and ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM). Therefore, high-redshift (z > 5) Ly{\alpha} forests could be…
We constrain the H I photoionization rate $(\Gamma_{\rm HI})$ at $z \lesssim 0.45$ by comparing the flux probability distribution function and power spectrum of the Ly-$\alpha$ forest data along 82 QSO sightlines obtained using Cosmic…
Recent work has shown that the z~2.5 Lyman-alpha forest on large scales encodes information about the galaxy and quasar populations that keep the intergalactic medium photoionized. We present the first forecasts for constraining the…
(abridged) We present an effective implementation of analytical calculations of the Lyalpha opacity distribution of the Intergalactic Medium (IGM) along multiple lines of sight (LOS) to distant quasars in a cosmological setting. This method…