Related papers: Seeking the Ultraviolet Ionizing Background at z~3…
We describe an ongoing experiment to search for the meta-galactic Lyman-continuum background at z~2-3. We are obtaining one of the deepest optical spectra ever, using LRIS/Keck-II to search for the fluorescent Ly-alpha emission from…
We discuss new observational constraints on the abundance of faint high redshift Lyman-alpha emitters secured from a deep Keck near-infrared spectroscopic survey which utilizes the strong magnification provided by lensing galaxy clusters at…
A homogeneous sample of 99 moderate resolution QSO spectra at z > 1.7 were presented in Paper I, including 39 previously unpublished spectra from the Multiple Mirror Telescope. The statistics of the Lyman alpha forest were discussed. In…
In Paper III of our series "A Uniform Analysis of the Ly-alpha forest at z=0 - 5", we presented a set of 270 quasar spectra from the archives of the Faint Object Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. A total of 151 of these spectra,…
We publicly release a new sample of $34$ medium resolution quasar spectra at $5.77\leq z_{\rm em}\leq6.54$ observed with the Echellette Spectrograph and Imager (ESI) on the Keck telescope. This quasar sample represents an ideal laboratory…
As Lyman-alpha photons are scattered by neutral hydrogen, a change with redshift in the Lyman-alpha equivalent width distribution of distant galaxies offers a promising probe of the degree of ionization in the intergalactic medium and hence…
Using deep Keck spectroscopy of Lyman break galaxies selected from infrared imaging data taken with WFC3/IR onboard the Hubble Space Telescope, we present new evidence for a reversal in the redshift-dependent fraction of star forming…
Long exposure, long-slit spectra have been obtained in the UV/optical bands for two galaxies at z=2.96 and z=3.32 to investigate the fraction of ionizing UV photons escaping from high redshifts galaxies. The two targets are among the…
Observations of reionization-era analogs at $z\sim3$ are a powerful tool for constraining reionization. Rest-ultraviolet observations are particularly useful, in which both direct and indirect tracers of ionizing-photon production and…
The intensity of the Cosmic UV background (UVB), coming from all sources of ionising photons such as star-forming galaxies and quasars, determines the thermal evolution and ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) and is,…
This paper describes a study of the Lyman-alpha forest absorption clouds along the quasar sightline Q0000-26 (zem=4.1). The spectrum was obtained with the High Resolution Spectrometer on the 10m Keck telescope. We derive accurate H I column…
Using radiative transfer calculations and cosmological simulations of structure formation, we study constraints that can be placed on the nature of the cosmic ultraviolet (UV) background in the redshift interval 2.5< z <5. Our approach…
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…
We present and discuss the mean rest-frame ultraviolet spectrum for a sample of 81 Lyman Break Galaxies (LBGs) selected to be B-band dropouts with a mean redshift of z=3.9 and apparent magnitudes z_AB<26. Most of the individual spectra are…
Narrow-band searches for Lyman alpha emission are an efficient way of identifying star-forming galaxies at high redshifts. We present Keck telescope spectra confirming redshifts z = 5.7 for three objects discovered in the Large Area Lyman…
We present results from a new Keck spectroscopic survey of UV-faint LBGs in the redshift range 3<z<7. Combined with earlier Keck and published ESO VLT data, our sample contains more than 600 dropouts, offering new insight into the nature of…
We present a measurement of the mean intensity of the hydrogen-ionizing background radiation field at low redshift using 906 Ly-alpha absorption lines in 151 quasar spectra from the archives of the Faint Object Spectrograph on the Hubble…
We present Keck spectroscopic observations of z>6 Lyman-break galaxy (LBG) candidates in the Subaru Deep Field (SDF). The candidates were selected as i'-dropout objects down to z'=27 AB magnitudes from an ultra-deep SDF z'-band image. With…
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 present the results of rest-frame ultraviolet spectroscopic observations of a sample of 14 z~3 star-forming galaxies in the SSA22a field. These spectra are characterized by unprecedented depth in the Lyman-continuum region. For the first…