Related papers: Cosmic Reionization Redux
The relation between the Lyman-$\alpha$ effective optical depth of quasar sightlines ($\tau_\mathrm{los}$) and the distribution of galaxies around them is an emerging probe of the connection between the first collapsed structures and the…
The recent discovery of a high optical depth tau to Thomson scattering from the WMAP data implies that significant reionization took place at redshifts z~15. This discovery has important implications for the sources of reionization, and…
Discovery of the cosmic reionization epoch would represent a significant milestone in cosmology. We present Keck spectroscopy of the quasar SDSS 1044-0125, at z = 5.73. The spectrum shows a dramatic increase in the optical depth at observed…
We present an absorption-line survey of optically thick gas clouds -- Lyman Limit Systems (LLSs) -- observed at high dispersion with spectrometers on the Keck and Magellan telescopes. We measure column densities of neutral hydrogen NHI and…
We study the properties of self-shielding intergalactic absorption systems and their implications for the ionizing background. We find that cosmological simulations post-processed with detailed radiative transfer calculations generally are…
We report on detailed Monte Carlo inversion analysis of the Lyman limit system observed at z = 2.917 in the VLT/UVES spectrum of the quasar HE 0940-1050. Metal absorption lines of carbon and silicon in three ionization stages and numerous…
The observed number density of Lyman-alpha sources implies a minimum volume of the inter-galactic medium that must be ionized, in order to allow the Lyman-alpha photons to escape attenuation. We estimate this volume by assigning to each…
The average rate of emission of ionizing radiation per unit volume (or emissivity) in the universe can be calculated as the ratio of the intensity of the ionizing background to the mean free path of ionizing photons. The intensity of the…
We use high-resolution simulations of cosmological volumes to model galaxy formation at high-redshift, with the goal of studying the photon budget for reionization. We demonstrate that galaxy formation models that include a strong,…
We combine high resolution hydrodynamical simulations with an intermediate resolution, dark matter only simulation and an analytical model for the growth of ionized regions to estimate the large scale distribution and redshift evolution of…
We report the serendipitous detection of a 0.2 L$^*$, Lyman-$\alpha$ emitting galaxy at redshift 2.5 at an impact parameter of 50 kpc from a bright background QSO sightline. A high-resolution spectrum of the QSO reveals a partial…
Based on the work by Mitra, Choudhury & Ferrara (2010), we obtain model-independent constraints on reionization from cosmic microwave background (CMB) and QSO absorption line data by decomposing the function N_{ion}(z) (the number of…
We apply Bayesian statistics with prior probabilities of galaxy surface luminosity (SL) to improve photometric redshifts. We apply the method to a sample of 1266 galaxies with spectroscopic redshifts in the GOODS North and South fields at…
We calculate the neutral hydrogen column density of self-absorption in QSOs predicted in a model where the QSOs are located in the same halos that contain the gas in damped Lya absorption systems. The model is parameterized by the…
Low-frequency radio observations of neutral hydrogen during and before the epoch of cosmic reionization will provide ~ 1000 quasi-independent source planes, each of precisely known redshift, if a resolution of ~1 arcminutes or better can be…
Measuring the density of the intergalactic medium using quasar sightlines in the epoch of reionization is challenging due to the saturation of Lyman-$\alpha$ absorption. Near a luminous quasar, however, the enhanced radiation creates a…
The high-redshift intergalactic medium (IGM) and the primeval galaxy population are rapidly becoming the new frontier of extra-galactic astronomy. We investigate the IGM properties and their connection to galaxies at $z\geq5.5$ under…
An appealing approach for studying the reionization history of the Universe is to measure the redshift evolution of the Lyman-alpha fraction, the percentage of Lyman-break selected galaxies that emit appreciably in the Ly-alpha line. This…
We compute the ionizing radiation field at low redshift, arising from Seyferts, QSOs, and starburst galaxies. This calculation combines recent Seyfert luminosity functions, extrapolated ultraviolet fluxes from our IUE-AGN database, and a…
The new Wide Field Camera 3/IR observations on the Hubble Ultra-Deep Field started investigating the properties of galaxies during the reionization epoch. To interpret these observations, we present a novel approach inspired by the…