Related papers: Reionization after JWST: a photon budget crisis?
Early results of JWST observations have delivered bright $z\gtrsim 10$ galaxy candidates in greater numbers than expected, enabling construction of the rest-frame UV luminosity functions (LFs). The LFs contain key information on the galaxy…
Cosmic reionization represents the latest phase transition in the Universe, when the Lyman continuum (LyC) photons turned the intergalactic medium (IGM) from neutral to highly ionized. It has long been debated whether galaxies or active…
The $James \ Webb \ Space \ Telescope \ (JWST)$ recently reported a large population of UV luminous galaxies at high redshifts, $ z > 10$, as well as Lyman-$\alpha$ emitting (LAE) galaxies out to $z \sim 11$. We use the observed UV…
The end of the Cosmic Dark Age marked the onset of reionization, driven by extreme-UV photons from the first galaxies. Direct detection of such photons has remained challenging due to strong intergalactic attenuation. Here, we report the…
The fraction of ionizing photons escaping from galaxies, $f_{esc}$, is at the same time a crucial parameter in modelling reionization and a very poorly known quantity, especially at high redshift. Recent observations are starting to…
We present new measurements of the intensity of the ionizing ultraviolet background and the global emissivity of ionizing photons over 2 < z < 5. Our results are based on a suite of updated measurements of physical properties of the…
Early JWST observations have revealed substantial numbers of galaxies out to redshifts as high as $z \simeq 14$, reflecting a slow evolution of the galaxy UV luminosity function (LF) not anticipated by many models of galaxy evolution. The…
In the first billion years after the Big Bang, sources of ultraviolet (UV) photons are believed to have ionized intergalactic hydrogen, rendering the Universe transparent to UV radiation. Galaxies brighter than the characteristic luminosity…
Recent JWST observations of Lyman-$\alpha$ emission at $z \sim 11-6$ indicate a rapid reionization of the intergalactic medium within the first $\sim700$ Myr. The required Lyman continuum (LyC) photon budget may naturally arise from the…
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…
Deep surveys with the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) have revealed an emergent population of moderate-luminosity, broad-line active galactic nuclei (AGNs) at 4< z< 14 powered by accretion onto early massive black holes. The high number…
(Abridged) We review recent observations that suggest the star formation rate density is declining over 3$<z<$7 and illustrate the challenges that this poses in explaining the assembled stellar mass in z$\sim$6 galaxies deduced from Spitzer…
With its sensitivity in the rest-frame optical, the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has uncovered active galactic nuclei (AGN), comprising both intrinsically faint and heavily reddened sources, well into the first billion years of the…
Early galaxies were the radiation source for reionization, with the photoheating feedback from the reionization process expected to reduce the efficiency of star formation in low mass haloes. Hence, to fully understand reionization and…
The Epoch of Reionization marks the last major phase transition in the early Universe, during which the majority of neutral hydrogen once filling the intergalactic medium was ionized by the first galaxies. The James Webb Space Telescope…
The epoch of reionization (6 < z < 10) marks the period in our universe when the first large galaxies grew to fruition, and began to affect the universe around them. Massive stars, and potentially accreting supermassive black holes, filled…
The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) will enable observations of galaxies at redshifts z > 10 and hence allow to test our current understanding of structure formation at very early times. Previous work has shown that the very first…
We present a new method to quantify the value of the escape fraction of ionizing photons, and the existence of ultra-faint galaxies clustered around brighter objects during the epoch of cosmic reionization, using the diffuse Ly$\alpha$,…
We have modelled the process of reionization of the IGM by photoionization by galaxies, in order to predict the epoch of reionization. We use a sophisticated semi-analytic model to track the formation of galaxies. Our study represents a…
The protagonists of cosmic reionization remain elusive. Faint star-forming galaxies are leading candidates because they are numerous and may have significant ionizing photon escape fractions ($f_{esc}$). Here we update this picture via an…