Related papers: Inferring local quasar IGM damping wing constraint…
JWST provides a unique dataset to study reionization's earliest stages, promising insights into the first galaxies. Many JWST/NIRSpec prism spectra reveal smooth Lyman-alpha breaks in z>5 galaxies, implying damping wing scattering by…
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.…
The shape of the Ly-$\alpha$ transmission in the near zone of the redshift $z=5.9896$ quasar ULAS J0148$+$0600 (hereafter J0148) is consistent with a damping wing arising from an extended neutral hydrogen island in the diffuse intergalactic…
The spectra of high-redshift ($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…
The conditions within the ionization front of a quasar during reionization (T ~ 30,000 K, neutral hydrogen fraction ~ 0.5) are ideal for producing Lyman-alpha emission via collisional excitation of hydrogen atoms. Observations of this…
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 a new flexible Bayesian framework for directly inferring the fraction of neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR, z~6-10) from detections and non-detections of Lyman Alpha…
We investigate the possibility of constraining the ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) close to the end of reionization (z ~ 6) by measuring the size of the HII regions in high-z quasars spectra. We perform a combination of…
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…
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 distribution of diffuse gas in the intergalactic medium (IGM) imprints a series of hydrogen absorption lines on the spectra of distant background quasars known as the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest. Cosmological hydrodynamical simulations…
Measurements of the intergalactic medium (IGM) temperature provide a potentially powerful constraint on the reionisation history due to the thermal imprint left by the photo-ionisation of neutral hydrogen. However, until recently IGM…
Ly$\alpha$ damping wings in the spectra of bright objects at high redshift are a useful probe of the ionization state of the intergalactic medium during the reionization epoch. It has recently been noted that, despite the inhomogeneous…
Observations of the early Universe suggest that reionization was complete by $z\sim6$, however, the exact history of this process is still unknown. One method for measuring the evolution of the neutral fraction throughout this epoch is via…
We quantify the presence of Ly\alpha\ damping wing absorption from a partially-neutral intergalactic medium (IGM) in the spectrum of the $z=7.08$ QSO, ULASJ1120+0641. Using a Bayesian framework, we simultaneously account for uncertainties…
Using hydrodynamical simulations coupled to a radiative transfer code, we study the additional heating effects in the intergalactic medium (IGM) produced by $z\sim 6$ quasars in their near-zones. If helium is predominantly in HeII to begin…
The red damping wing from neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium is a smoking-gun signal of ongoing reionization. One potential contaminant of the intergalactic damping wing signal is dense gas associated with foreground galaxies,…
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…
Spectroscopic analysis of Ly$\alpha$ damping wings of bright sources at $z>6$ is a promising way to measure the reionization history of the universe. However, the theoretical interpretation of the damping wings is challenging due to the…
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…