Related papers: A Statistical Analysis of Intergalactic Medium Tra…
How galaxies drive reionization and what governs its geometry remain fundamental questions. We present JWST/NIRCam wide-field slitless spectroscopy (WFSS) observations toward two of the most Ly$\alpha$-transmissive QSO sightlines near the…
At redshifts beyond z>6, as the mean fraction of neutral hydrogen x_HI in the intergalactic medium (IGM) increases, the line flux of Lyman alpha (Lya) emitters can be significantly suppressed, which can result in a decrease in the observed…
Hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation such as the Illustris simulations have progressed to a state where they approximately reproduce the observed stellar mass function from high to low redshift. This in principle allows…
We study the $z\approx3.5$ intergalactic medium (IGM) by comparing new, high-quality absorption spectra of eight QSOs with $\langle z_{\rm QSO} \rangle=3.75$, to virtual observations of the EAGLE cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. We…
Detecting neutral hydrogen structures in the intergalactic medium (IGM) during cosmic reionization via absorption (21 cm forest) against a background radiation is considered independent and complementary to the three-dimensional tomography…
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…
We propose different estimators to probe the intergalactic medium (IGM) during epoch of reionization (EoR) using the dispersion measure (${\rm DM}$) of the fast radio bursts. We consider three different reionization histories, which we can…
Recent observations suggest that helium became fully ionized around redshift z ~ 3. The HeII optical depth derived from the Lyman-alpha forest decreases substantially from this period to z ~ 2; moreover, it fluctuates strongly near z ~ 3…
The fraction of ionizing photons that escape their host galaxies and so are able to ionize hydrogen in the inter-galactic medium (IGM) is a critical parameter in analyses of the reionization era and early galaxy formation. Studies of the…
We present an analysis of the Lyman alpha forests of five quasar spectra in the near UV. Properties of the intergalactic medium (IGM) at an intermediate redshift interval (0.9 < z < 1.9) are studied. The amount of baryons in the diffuse…
The relatively large Thomson optical depth, tau_e, inferred recently from the WMAP observations suggests that the Universe was reionized in a more complex manner than previously believed. However, the value of tau_e provides only an…
The period in which hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) is ionized, known as the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) is still poorly understood. The timing and duration of the EoR is expected to be governed by the underlying astrophysics.…
We present the first large-scale, full radiative transfer simulations of the reionization of the intergalactic medium in the presence of Lyman-limit systems (LLSs). To illustrate the impact of LLS opacity, possibly missed by previous…
The fluctuations in the emission of redshifted 21cm photons from neutral inter-galactic hydrogen will provide an unprecedented probe of the reionization era. Conventional wisdom assumes that this 21cm signal disappears as soon as…
A variety of independent observational studies have now reported a significant decline in the fraction of Lyman-break galaxies which exhibit Ly-a emission over the redshift interval z=6-7. In combination with the strong damping wing…
We investigate the implications of the intergalactic opacity for the evolution of the cosmic UV luminosity density and its sources. Our main constraint is our measurement of the Lya forest opacity at redshifts 2<z<4.2 from 86…
The reionisation of the intergalactic medium (IGM) was driven by the first stars, galaxies, and accreting black holes. However, the relative importance of these sources and the efficiency by which ionising photons escape into the IGM remain…
Recent years have seen major advances in understanding the state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) at high redshift. Some aspects of this understanding are reviewed here. In particular, we discuss: (1) Different probes of IGM like…
We present a direct measurement of the metallicity distribution function for the high redshift intergalactic medium. We determine the shape of this function using survival statistics, which account for both detections and non-detections of…
We study the absorption along lines of sight toward high-z radio sources caused by the 21 cm transition of neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) before reionization. Using semi-analytic methods, we compute the number density of…