Related papers: Low-redshift evolution of the Lyman-alpha Forest
We present predictions for the fluorescent Lyman-alpha emission signature arising from photoionized, optically thick structures in Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamic (SPH) cosmological simulations of a Lambda-CDM universe using a Monte Carlo…
The baryon-acoustic oscillation (BAO) feature in the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest is one of the key probes of the cosmic expansion rate at redshifts z~2.5, well before dark energy is believed to have become dynamically significant. A key advantage…
High-resolution hydrodynamics simulations of the Ly-alpha forest in cold dark matter dominated cosmologies appear to predict line widths that are substantially narrower than those observed. Here we point out that Compton heating of the…
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. We have analysed the Lyman-alpha forest of eleven…
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…
We present some statistical features of the large number of \lya absorption lines detected in high redshift quasar spectra, obtained by using the multifractal approach. In the analysed sample of 12 QSO sight--lines, 11 show scaling…
Lyman limit and damped Lyman-alpha absorption systems probe the distribution of collapsed, cold gas at high redshift. Numerical simulations that incorporate gravity and gas dynamics can predict the abundance of such absorbers in…
A scenario is explored in which Lyman alpha absorbers at low redshift arise from lines of sight through extended galaxy disks, including those of dwarf and low surface brightness galaxies. A population of galaxies is simulated based upon…
The forest of Lyman-alpha absorption lines seen in the spectra of distant quasars has become an important probe of the distribution of matter in the Universe. We use large, hydrodynamical simulations from the OWLS project to investigate the…
The effective optical depth in the Ly-alpha forest region of 1061 low-resolution QSO spectra drawn from the SDSS database decreases with decreasing redshift over the range 2.5 < z < 4. Although the evolution is relatively smooth, tau_eff ~…
We present results from the first high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations of non-Gaussian cosmological models. We focus on the statistical properties of the transmitted Lyman-alpha flux in the high redshift intergalactic medium. Imprints…
We present the first science results from our Hubble Space Telescope Survey for Lyman limit absorption systems (LLS) using the low dispersion spectroscopic modes of the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Wide Field Camera 3. Through an…
We introduce an efficient and accurate alternative to full hydrodynamic simulations, Hydro-PM (HPM), for the study of the low column density Lyman-alpha forest. It consists of a Particle-Mesh solver, modified to compute, in addition to the…
We investigate the cosmic evolution of low luminosity ($L_{\rm{1.4GHz}}<10^{25}\rm{W~Hz^{-1}sr^{-1}}$) radio sources in the XMM Large Scale Structure survey field (XMM-LSS). We match low frequency selected (610~MHz) radio sources in the…
We model the transmission of the Lyman-alpha line through the circum- and intergalactic media around dark matter haloes expected to host Lyman-alpha emitters (LAEs) at z > 5.7, using the high-dynamic-range Sherwood simulations. We find very…
Spectroscopy with HST/STIS Echelle and VLT/UVES of the bright QSO HE 0515-4414 (z_em =1.73, B = 15.0) offers for the first time the opportunity to study the Lyman alpha forest in the redshift range 0.9 < z < 1.7 at a resolution ~ 10 km/s.…
The thermal history of the intergalactic medium is full of extremely useful data in the field of astrophysics and cosmology. In other words, by examining this environment in different redshifts, the effects of cosmology and astrophysics can…
We address the problem of inferring the three-dimensional matter distribution from a sparse set of one-dimensional quasar absorption spectra of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest. Using a Bayesian forward modelling approach, we focus on extending…
The temperature of the low-density intergalactic medium (IGM) at high redshift is sensitive to the timing and nature of hydrogen and HeII reionization, and can be measured from Lyman-alpha forest absorption spectra. Since the memory of…
We study the luminosity functions of high-redshift galaxies in detailed hydrodynamic simulations of cosmic reionization, which are designed to reproduce the evolution of the Lyman-alpha forest between z=5 and z=6. We find that the…