Related papers: Reionization on ice
The physical conditions of the circumgalactic medium are probed by intervening absorption-line systems in the spectrum of background quasi-stellar objects out to the epoch of cosmic reionization. A correlation between the ionization state…
The fraction of ionizing photons escaping from high-redshift star-forming galaxies remains a key obstacle in evaluating whether galaxies were the primary agents of cosmic reionization. We previously proposed using the covering fraction of…
We investigate the process of reionisation in a model in which the dark matter is a warm elementary particle such as a sterile neutrino. We focus on models that are consistent with the dark matter decay interpretation of the recently…
Within one billion years of the Big Bang, intergalactic hydrogen was ionized by sources emitting ultraviolet and higher energy photons. This was the final phenomenon to globally affect all the baryons (visible matter) in the Universe. It is…
Motivated by recent evidence that the epoch of reionization of hydrogen may have ended at a redshift as low as z~6 we consider the detectability of the sources responsible for this reionization. The main idea is that reionization places…
We use the recent detection of He II absorption at $z=2.2-2.6$ in the line of sight of the quasar HS1700+64 to put bounds on the sources of ionization. We find that given the uncertainty in $\tauhgp$ and the model of absorption in the…
Hydrogen in the Universe was (re)ionised between redshifts $z \approx 10$ and $z \approx 6$. The nature of the sources of the ionising radiation is hotly debated, with faint galaxies below current detection limits regarded as prime…
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…
We report the results of a survey for HI 21-cm absorption at z < 0.4 in a new sample of radio sources with the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope. Of the 11 sources for which there are good data, we obtain zero detections, where four are…
Star-forming galaxies in the early universe provide us with perhaps the most natural way of explaining the reionization of the universe. Current observational results are sufficiently comprehensive, as to allow us to approximately calculate…
Many experimental evidences indicate the presence of a ionizing background radiation flux at large redshifts; in some previous works I suggested the possibility that this ionizing flux comes from the quantum evaporation of primordial black…
Constraints on the ionization structure of the Intergalactic Medium are derived as directly imposed by observations in conjunction with the results of numerical simulations for structure formation. Under the assumption that the population…
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…
Recent observations have set the first constraints on the epoch of reionization (EoR), corresponding to the formation epoch of the first luminous objects. Studies of Gunn-Peterson (GP) absorption, and related phenomena, suggest a…
The hardness of the ionizing continuum from the first sources of UV radiation plays a crucial role in the reionization of the intergalactic medium (IGM). While usual stellar populations have soft spectra, mini-quasars or metal-free stars…
Detections and non-detections of Lyman alpha (Ly$\alpha$) emission from $z>6$ galaxies ($<1$ Gyr after the Big Bang) can be used to measure the timeline of cosmic reionization. Of key interest to measuring reionization's mid-stages, but…
We have undertaken a survey for HI 21-cm absorption within the host galaxies of z ~ 1.2 - 1.5 radio sources, in the search of the cool neutral gas currently "missing" at z > 1. This deficit is believed to be due to the optical selection of…
We combine fast radiative transfer calculations with high resolution hydrodynamical simulations to study an epoch of early hydrogen reionisation by primordial stellar sources at redshifts 15<z<30. With relatively conservative assumptions,…
Reionization represents an important phase in the history of our Universe when ultraviolet radiation from the first luminous sources, primarily stars and accreting black holes, ionized the neutral hydrogen atoms in the intergalactic medium…
Intergalactic Ly-alpha opacity suggests that H I was reionized at z ~ 6, while He II reionization was delayed to z ~ 3. Both epochs are in conflict with inferences from CMB optical depth (WMAP) which suggest early reionization at z = 10-20.…