Related papers: Probing Helium Reionization Through the $^{3}\math…
The temperature of the low-density intergalactic medium is set by the balance between adiabatic cooling resulting from the expansion of the universe, and photo-heating by the UV-background. A sudden injection of entropy from the…
We present measurements of the intergalactic medium (IGM) temperature within ~5 proper Mpc of seven luminous quasars at z~6. The constraints are obtained from the Doppler widths of Lyman-alpha absorption lines in the quasar near-zones and…
Observations of resolved HeII Lyman alpha absorption in spectra of two QSO's suggest that the epoch of helium ionization occurred at z~3. Proximity zones in the spectra of the quasars (z=3.18, 3.285) at 304 A resemble Stromgren spheres,…
Three independent observational studies have now detected a narrow (\Delta z ~ 0.5) dip centred at z=3.2 in the otherwise smooth redshift evolution of the Lya forest effective optical depth. This feature has previously been interpreted as…
We present a new, high resolution HST/GHRS spectrum of quasar Q0302-003, and use the HeII Lyman-$\alpha$ absorption, together with a high resolution Keck spectrum of the HI Lyman-$\alpha$ forest, to probe the distribution and ionization…
We study statistics of the 21-cm signal from the epoch of reionization. We propose to use [OIII] line emitting galaxies to cross-correlate with the 21-cm signal from $z = 7 - 10$. To this aim, we employ simulations of reionization obtained…
The epoch of hydrogen reionization is complete by $z=5$, but its progression at higher redshifts is uncertain. Measurements of Ly$\alpha$ forest opacity show large scatter at $z<6$, suggestive of spatial fluctuations in neutral fraction…
At redshifts z >~ 2, most of the baryons reside in the smooth intergalactic medium which is responsible for the low column density Lyman-alpha forest. This photoheated gas follows a tight temperature-density relation which introduces a…
We present new measurements of the temperature of the intergalactic medium (IGM) derived from the Lyman-alpha forest over 2.0 < z < 4.8. The small-scale structure in the forest of 61 high-resolution QSO spectra is quantified using a new…
Above redshift 6, the dominant source of neutral hydrogen in the Universe shifts from localized clumps in and around galaxies and filaments to a pervasive, diffuse component of the intergalactic medium (IGM). This transition tracks the…
We measure several properties of the reionization process and the corresponding low-frequency 21-cm signal associated with the neutral hydrogen distribution, using a large volume, high resolution simulation of cosmic reionization. The…
We present new high-resolution (R~14,000) spectra of the two brightest HeII-transparent quasars in the far-UV (FUV) at z>3.5, HE2QSJ2311-1417 (z=3.70) and HE2QSJ1630+0435 (z=3.81), obtained with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS) on the…
We report on the detection of strongly varying intergalactic HeII absorption in HST/COS spectra of two z~3 quasars. From our homogeneous analysis of the HeII absorption in these and three archival sightlines, we find a marked increase in…
The reionization of the second electron of helium shapes the physical state of intergalactic gas at redshifts between 2 < z < 5. Because performing full in situ radiative transfer in hydrodynamic simulations is computationally expensive for…
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 detailed model of the He I collisional-recombination spectrum based on the most up-to-date atomic data. The model accounts for radiative transfer effects and the influence of a non-zero optical depth in He I lines arising…
We report the most sensitive upper limits to date on the 21 cm epoch of reionization power spectrum using 94 nights of observing with Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). Using similar analysis techniques as in…
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…
Models of the solar transition region made from lines other than those of helium cannot account for the strength of the helium lines. However, the collisional excitation rates of the helium resonance lines are unusually sensitive to the…
We examine the prospects for studying the pre-reionization intergalactic medium (IGM) through the so-called 21 cm forest in spectra of bright high-redshift radio sources. We first compute the evolution of the mean optical depth for models…