Related papers: Determining the Redshift of Reionization From the …
For a source of Ly alpha radiation embedded in a neutral intergalactic medium (IGM) prior to the reionization epoch, the emission line is strongly suppressed by the intervening IGM. The damping wing of the so-called Gunn-Peterson trough can…
Recent observations of high-redshift galaxies and quasars indicate that the hydrogen component of the intergalactic medium (IGM) must have been reionized at some redshift z>6. Prior to complete reionization, sources of ultraviolet radiation…
Recently, Pello et al. (2004) claimed to have discovered a galaxy at a redshift z=10, and identified a feature in its spectrum with a hydrogen Lyman-alpha emission line. If this identification is correct, we show that the intergalactic…
The quest to discover the most distant galaxies has developed rapidly in the last decade. We are now exploring redshifts of 6 and beyond, when the Universe was less than a billion years old, an epoch when the previously-neutral…
The discovery of Lyman-alpha emission from galaxies at redshifts beyond z~6.5 should not be naively interpreted as implying that the intergalactic medium (IGM) had been reionized at higher redsifts. We show that a cluster of faint…
We have discovered six galaxies with spectroscopically confirmed redshifts of 4.8<z<5.8 in a single 44 square arcminute field imaged deeply in R, I and z-bands. All the spectra show an emission-line in the region around 7000-8400 angstroms…
It has been several years since the first detection of Gunn-Peterson troughs in the z > 6 Ly-alpha forest and since the first measurement of the Thomson scattering optical depth through reionization from the cosmic microwave background…
We present moderate resolution Keck spectroscopy of quasars at z=5.82, 5.99 and 6.28, discovered by the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS). We find that the Ly Alpha absorption in the spectra of these quasars evolves strongly with redshift. To…
The transmission of Lyman-{\alpha} (Ly{\alpha}) in the spectra of distant quasars depends on the density, temperature, and ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM). Therefore, high-redshift (z > 5) Ly{\alpha} forests could be…
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…
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…
Known populations of QSOs appear to fall short of producing the ionizing flux required for re-ionizing the universe. The alternative, galaxies as sources of ionizing photons, suffers from the problem that known types of galaxies are almost…
$\require{mediawiki-texvc}$Cosmic Reionisation commenced when ultraviolet (UV) radiation produced in the first galaxies began illuminating the cold, neutral gas that filled the primordial Universe. Recent James Webb Space Telescope (JWST)…
We present observations of a luminous galaxy at redshift z=6.573 --- the end of the reioinization epoch --- which has been spectroscopically confirmed twice. The first spectroscopic confirmation comes from slitless HST ACS grism spectra…
The inhomogeneous cosmological reionization process leaves tangible imprints in the intergalactic medium down to z=4-5. The Lyman-alpha forest flux power spectrum provides a potentially powerful probe of the epoch of reionization. With the…
The next generation of telescopes aim to directly observe the first generation of galaxies that initiated the reionization process in our Universe. The Lyman Alpha (Lya) emission line is robustly predicted to be the most prominent intrinsic…
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…
Previous studies have noted difficulties in modeling the highest opacities of the $z>5.5$ Ly$\alpha$ forest, epitomized by the extreme Ly$\alpha$ trough observed towards quasar ULAS J0148+0600. One possibility is that the most opaque…
The next generation of gamma-ray telescopes may be able to observe gamma-ray blazars at high redshift, possibly out to the epoch of reionization. The spectrum of such sources should exhibit an absorption edge due to pair-production against…
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…