Related papers: Radiative Transfer in a Clumpy Universe: II. The U…
Recent suggestions of a "photon underproduction crisis" (Kollmeier \etal\ 2014) have generated concern over the intensity and spectrum of ionizing photons in the metagalactic ultraviolet background (UVB). The balance of hydrogen…
Numerical hydrodynamical simulations have proven a successful means of reproducing many of the statistical properties of the LyA forest as measured in high redshift (z > 4) quasar spectra. The source of ionization of the Intergalactic…
Lyman-alpha (Lya) photons that escape the interstellar medium of star-forming galaxies may be resonantly scattered by neutral hydrogen atoms in the circumgalactic and intergalactic media, thereby increasing the angular extent of the…
We study the observed cosmic ionizing background as a constraint on the nature of the sources responsible for the reionization of the Universe. In earlier work, we showed that extrapolations of the Ultra-Violet Luminosity Function (LF) of…
A generic assumption of ionization models of quasar absorption systems is that radiation from local sources is negligible compared with the cosmological background. We test this assumption and find that it is unlikely to hold for absorbers…
The estimate of the ionizing UV background through the proximity effect analysis is discussed. Taking into account the correct bending of the column density distribution which appears in high resolution high s/n data, a value of the UV…
The Lyman alpha absorption from intergalactic, once-ionized helium (HeII) has been measured with HST in four quasars over the last few years, over the redshift range 2.4 < z < 3.2. These observations have indicated that the HeII…
When modelling the ionisation of gas in the intergalactic medium after reionisation, it is standard practice to assume a uniform radiation background. This assumption is not always appropriate; models with radiative transfer show that…
Using 3D radiative transfer calculations on the reionization of an inhomogeneous universe, QSO absorption line systems are simulated and they are compared with observations of Ly$\alpha$ continuum depression at high redshifts. By this…
We present new measurements of the intensity of the ionizing ultraviolet background and the global emissivity of ionizing photons over 2 < z < 5. Our results are based on a suite of updated measurements of physical properties of the…
We re-examine scattering of photons near the Lyman-alpha resonance in the intergalactic medium (IGM). We first derive a general integral solution for the radiation field around resonance when spin diffusivity is ignored. Our solution shows…
Recent observations have shown that the intergalactic medium (IGM) is more transparent to Lyalpha photons close to Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) than at large distance from them, ie a proximity effect. Cosmological simulations including winds…
Cosmic (hydrogen) reionization marks one of the major phase transitions of the universe at redshift z >= 6. During this epoch, hydrogen atoms in the intergalactic medium (IGM) were ionized by Lyman continuum (LyC) photons. However, it…
We assess a model of late cosmic reionization in which the ionizing background radiation arises entirely from high redshift quasars and other active galactic nuclei (AGNs). The low optical depth to Thomson scattering reported by the Planck…
We use new studies of the cosmic evolution of star-forming galaxies to estimate the production rate of ionizing photons from hot, massive stars at low and intermediate redshifts. The luminosity function of blue galaxies in the Canada-France…
We report the discovery of a further line of sight allowing detection of HeII Ly alpha absorption by the intergalactic medium. A HST/STIS survey of 32 bright z ~ 3 quasars selected from the Hamburg Quasar Surveys yielded one detection…
We present a new approach to constrain the spectral energy distribution of the intergalactic UV background observationally by studying metal absorption systems. We study single-component metal line systems exhibiting various well-measured…
A model of the density distribution in the intergalactic medium, motivated by that found in numerical simulations, is used to demonstrate the effect of a clumpy IGM and discrete sources on the reionization of the universe. In an…
One of the most sought-after signatures of reionization is a rapid increase in the ionizing background (usually measured through the Lyman-alpha optical depth toward distant quasars). Conventional wisdom associates this with the "overlap"…
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…