Related papers: How exactly did the Universe become neutral?
Solar wind measurements in the heliosphere are predominantly comprised of protons, alphas, and minor elements in a highly ionized state. The majority of low charge states, such as He$^{+}$, measured in situ are often attributed to pick up…
Upcoming precision measurements of the temperature anisotropy of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) at high multipoles will need to be complemented by a more complete understanding of recombination, which determines the damping of…
A number of recent works in astronomy and cosmology have relied upon theoretical He I emissivities, but we know of no effort to quantify the uncertainties in the atomic data. We analyze and assign uncertainties to all relevant atomic data,…
The escape of ionizing radiation from galaxies plays a critical role in the evolution of gas in galaxies, and the heating and ionization history of the intergalactic medium. We present semi-analytic calculations of the escape fraction of…
We investigate the influence of High Mass X-ray Binaries on their high redshift environments. Using a one-dimensional radiative transfer code, we predict the ionization and temperature profiles surrounding a coeval stellar population,…
There is now strong evidence that some stars have been born with He mass fractions as high as $Y \approx 0.40$ (e.g., in $\omega$ Centauri). However, the advanced evolution, chemical yields, and final fates of He-rich stars are largely…
The history of the transition from a neutral intergalactic medium (IGM) to one that is almost fully ionized can reveal the character of cosmological ionizing sources. We study the evolution of the volume filling factor of HII and HeIII…
Hydrogen atoms in the Universe that initially formed at redshift z = 1100 were reionized at 5 < z < 60. It is likely that this transition proceeded through a mixed phase of partial ionization. We develop an analytic approach to calculating…
We consider the effects connected with the detailed radiative transfer during the epoch of cosmological recombination on the ionization history of our Universe. We focus on the escape of photons from the hydrogen Lyman-alpha resonance at…
Cosmic reionization is expected to be complex, extended and very inhomogeneous. Existing constraints at z~6 on the volume-averaged neutral hydrogen fraction, <x_HI>, are highly model-dependent and controversial. Constraints at z<6,…
Density inhomogeneity in the intergalactic medium (IGM) can boost the recombination rate of ionized gas substantially, affecting the growth of HII regions during reionization. Previous attempts to quantify this effect typically failed to…
Interstellar neutral gas atoms penetrate the heliopause and reach 1~au, where they are detected by IBEX. The flow of neutral interstellar helium through the perturbed interstellar plasma in the outer heliosheath (OHS) results in creation of…
We investigate reheating of the universe by early formation of stars and quasars in the hierarchical clustering scheme of cold dark matter scenario, with perturbation fluctuations normalized by the COBE data. It is found that ionizing uv…
A key assumption of the standard cosmological model is that the temperature of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) radiation scales with cosmological redshift $z$ as $T_{\rm CMB}(z) \propto (1+z)$ at all times after recombination at…
A classical approach based on hyperspherical coordinates is used to derive a first principle formulation of the the ion-neutral-neutral three-body recombination rate, A$^+$ + A + A $\rightarrow$ $\text{A}_2^+$ + A, in terms of the mass of…
A calculation of neutrino decoupling in the early Universe, including full Fermi-Dirac statistics and electron mass dependence in the weak reaction rates, is presented. We find that after decoupling, the electron neutrinos contribute 0.83\%…
The role of HeH+ has been newly assessed with the aid of newly calculated rates which use entirely ab initio methods, thereby allowing us to compute more accurately the relevant abundances within the global chemical network of the early…
Context. The radiation field consisting of hydrogen recombination lines and continuum emission might significantly affect the hydrogen-level populations in ultra- and hypercompact (U/HC) H II regions. The escape probability approximation…
Hydrogen and helium emission lines in nebulae form by radiative recombination. This is a simple process which, in principle, can be described to very high precision. Ratios of He I and H I emission lines can be used to measure the…
We examine the impact of helium reionization on the structure of the intergalactic medium (IGM). We model the reionization using a radiative transfer (RT) code coupled to the combined gravity hydrodynamics code Enzo. Neutral hydrogen and…