Related papers: Quantifying the Precision of IGM Damping Wing Meas…
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}…
Arguably the best hope of understanding the tail end of the reionization of the intergalactic medium (IGM) at redshift z > 6 is through the detection and characterization of the Gunn-Peterson (GP) damping wing absorption of the IGM in…
We introduce a new approach for analyzing the IGM damping wings imprinted on the proximity zones of quasars in the epoch of reionization (EoR). Whereas past work has typically forgone the additional constraining power afforded by the blue…
During reionization, neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) imprints a damping wing absorption feature on the spectrum of high-redshift quasars. A detection of this signature provides compelling evidence for a significantly…
Lyman-$\alpha$ damping wings towards quasars provide a unique probe of reionization because their strength correlates strongly with the global volume-averaged neutral hydrogen (HI) fraction of the intergalactic medium (IGM). Cosmic variance…
Ionizing sources embedded in the neutral intergalactic medium (IGM) before cosmological reionization generate discrete HII regions. We show that a sufficiently bright quasar (for example, one tenth as luminous as that recently discovered by…
Luminous $z\ge7$ quasars provide direct probes of the evolution of supermassive black holes (SMBHs) and the intergalactic medium (IGM) during the epoch of reionization (EoR). The Ly$\alpha$ damping wing absorption imprinted by neutral…
Recent observations of high-redshift galaxies and quasars indicate that the hydrogen component of the intergalactic medium (IGM) must have been reionized at some redshift z>6. Prior to complete reionization, sources of ultraviolet radiation…
The attenuation of Ly$\alpha$ photons by neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) at $z\gtrsim5$ continues to be a powerful probe for studying the epoch of reionisation. Given a framework to estimate the intrinsic (true)…
The spectra of several high-redshift (z>6) quasars have shown evidence for a Gunn-Peterson (GP) damping wing, indicating a substantial mean neutral hydrogen fraction (x_HI > 0.03) in the z ~ 6 intergalactic medium (IGM). However, previous…
Bright, high redshift ($z>6$) QSOs are powerful probes of the ionisation state of the intervening intergalactic medium (IGM). The detection of Ly$\alpha$ damping wing absorption imprinted in the spectrum of high-z QSOs can provide strong…
One well-known way to constrain the hydrogen neutral fraction, x_H, of the high-redshift intergalactic medium (IGM) is through the shape of the red damping wing of the Lya absorption line. We examine this method's effectiveness in light of…
Measurement of the red damping wing of neutral hydrogen in quasar spectra provides a probe of the epoch of reionization in the early Universe. Such quantification requires precise and unbiased estimates of the intrinsic continua near…
The spectra of high-redshift ($z\gtrsim 6$) quasars contain valuable information on the progression of the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). At redshifts $z<6$, the observed Lyman-series forest shows that the intergalactic medium (IGM) is nearly…
We present measurements of the mean and scatter of the IGM Lyman-{\alpha} opacity at 4.9 < z < 6.1 along the lines of sight of 62 quasars at z > 5.7, the largest sample assembled at these redshifts to date by a factor of two. The sample…
Observations of high-redshift quasars show that the IGM must have been reionized at some redshift $z>5$. If a source of radiation could be observed at the rest-frame Lya wavelength, at a sufficiently high redshift where some of the IGM in…
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…
Understanding the entire history of the ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) is at the frontier of astrophysics and cosmology. A promising method to achieve this is by extracting the damping wing signal from the neutral IGM.…
Signs of damping wing absorption attenuating the Lyman-$\alpha$ emission line of the first known $z \sim 7$ quasar, ULAS J1120+0641, recently provided exciting evidence of a significantly neutral IGM. This long-awaited signature of…
Thus far, Lyman-$\alpha$ damping wings towards quasars have been used to probe the \textit{global} ionization state of the foreground intergalactic medium (IGM). A new parameterization has demonstrated that the damping wing signature also…