相关论文: The case against large intensity fluctuations in t…
Recent observations suggest that helium became fully ionized around redshift z ~ 3. The HeII optical depth derived from the Lyman-alpha forest decreases substantially from this period to z ~ 2; moreover, it fluctuates strongly near z ~ 3…
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…
The Lyman-alpha forest at z >~ 5.5 shows strong scatter in the mean transmission even when smoothed over very large spatial scales, >~ 50 Mpc/h. This has been interpreted as a signature of strongly fluctuating radiation fields, or patchy…
With close pairs of quasars at different redshifts, a background quasar sightline can be used to study a foreground quasar's environment in absorption. We use a sample of 650 projected quasar pairs to study the HI Lya absorption transverse…
We measure the effective optical depth of HeII Ly\alpha\ absorption \tau$_\mathsf{eff,HeII}$ at 2.3<z<3.5 in 17 UV-transmitting quasars observed with UV spectrographs on the Hubble Space Telescope (HST). The median \tau$_\mathsf{eff,HeII}$…
We use high quality echelle spectra of 24 QSOs to provide a calibrated measurement of the total amount of Lyman-alpha forest absorption (DA) over the redshift range 2.2 < z < 3.2. Our measurement of DA excludes absorption from metal lines…
The proximity profile in the spectra of z~3 quasars, where fluxes extend blueward of the He II Lya wavelength 304 (1+z) A, is one of the most important spectral features in the study of the intergalactic medium. Based on the HST spectra of…
Spatial inhomogeneities in the spectral shape of the ultra-violet background (UVB) at the tail-end of HeII reionisation are thought to be the primary cause of the large fluctuations observed in the HeII to HI Ly-a forest optical depth…
Recent analyses of the intergalactic UV background by means of the HeII Lyman alpha forest assume that HeII and HI absorption features have the same line widths. We omit this assumption to investigate possible effects of thermal line…
The observed large-scale scatter in Lyman $\alpha$ opacity of the intergalactic medium at $z<6$ implies large fluctuations in the neutral hydrogen fraction that are unexpected long after reionization has ended. A number of models have…
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…
(Abridged) We present the results from the largest investigation to date of the proximity effect in the HI Lyalpha forest, using the fifth SDSS data release. The sample consists of 1733 QSOs at redshifts z>2.3 and S/N>10. We adopted the…
The HeII transverse proximity effect - enhanced HeII Ly{\alpha} transmission in a background sightline caused by the ionizing radiation of a foreground quasar - offers a unique opportunity to probe the emission properties of quasars, in…
We present the first results from our survey of intervening and proximate Lyman limit systems (LLSs) at $z$$\sim$2.0-2.5 using the Wide Field Camera 3 on-board the Hubble Space Telescope. The quasars in our sample are projected pairs with…
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…
Absorption spectra of high redshift quasars exhibit an increasingly thick Ly-alpha forest towards z~6. However, the interpretation of these spectra is complicated by the fact that the Ly-alpha optical depth is already large for neutral…
Recent work has shown that the z~2.5 Lyman-alpha forest on large scales encodes information about the galaxy and quasar populations that keep the intergalactic medium photoionized. We present the first forecasts for constraining the…
Strong observational evidence for a fluctuating ultraviolet background (UVB) has been accumulating through a number of studies of the HI and HeII Lya forest as well as accurate IGM metallicity measurements. UVB fluctuations could arise both…
We provide an in-depth analysis of the He II and H I absorption in the intergalactic medium (IGM) at redshifts z = 2.3-2.9 toward HE 2347-4342, using spectra from the Far Ultraviolet Spectroscopic Explorer (FUSE) and the Ultraviolet-Visual…
We present new measurements of the flux power-spectrum P(k) of the $z<0.5$ HI Lyman-$\alpha$ forest spanning scales k ~ 0.001-0.1 s/km. These results were derived from 65 far ultraviolet quasar spectra (resolution R~18000) observed with the…