The Epoch of Reionization

Abstract

The Universe's dark ages end with the formation of the first generation of galaxies. These objects start emitting ultraviolet radiation that carves out ionized regions around them. After a sufficient number of ionizing sources have formed, the ionized fraction of the gas in the Universe rapidly increases until hydrogen becomes fully ionized. This period, during which the cosmic gas went from neutral to ionized, is known as the Universe's Epoch of Reionization . The Epoch of Reionization is related to many fundamental questions in cosmology, such as properties of the first galaxies, physics of (mini-)quasars, formation of very metal-poor stars and a slew of other important research topics in astrophysics. Hence uncovering it will have far reaching implications on the study of structure formation in the early Universe. This chapter reviews the current observational evidence for the occurrence of this epoch, its key theoretical aspects and main characteristics, and finally the various observational probes that promise to uncover it. A special emphasis is put on the redshifted 21 cm probe, the various experiments that are currently being either built or designed, and what we can learn from them about the Epoch of Reionization.

This book chapter provides a review of the current understanding of the Epoch of Reionization with emphasis on the redshifted 21 cm probe, 59 pages, 26 figures, 234 references. To appear in "The First Galaxies - Theoretical Predictions and Observational Clues", 2012. Published by Springer, eds. T. Wiklind, B. Mobasher and V. Bromm

References in corpus (49)

• Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Three Year Results: Implications for Cosmology
• The UKIRT Infrared Deep Sky Survey (UKIDSS)
• Five-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Likelihoods and Parameters from the WMAP data
• A luminous quasar at a redshift of z = 7.085
• Three Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Polarization Analysis
• Efficient Simulations of Early Structure Formation and Reionization
• The End of the Reionization Epoch Probed by Ly-alpha Emitters at z=6.5 in the Subaru Deep Field
• Radio observational constraints on Galactic 3D-emission models
• The observed ionization rate of the intergalactic medium and the ionizing emissivity at z >5: Evidence for a photon starved and extended epoch of reionization
• The Gaseous Environment of High-z Galaxies: Precision Measurements of Neutral Hydrogen in the Circumgalactic Medium of z ~ 2-3 Galaxies in the Keck Baryonic Structure Survey
• The Direct Detection of Lyman-Continuum Emission from Star-forming Galaxies at z~3
• 21 cm fluctuations from inhomogeneous X-ray heating before reionization
• Foreground simulations for the LOFAR - Epoch of Reionization Experiment
• The CMBR fluctuations from HI perturbations prior to reionization
• How neutral is the intergalactic medium surrounding the redshift z=7.085 quasar ULAS J1120+0641?
• A lower limit of dz > 0.06 for the duration of the reionization epoch
• Measurements of the UV background at 4.6 < z < 6.4 using the quasar proximity effect
• Impact of dark matter decays and annihilations on reionization
• Radio Interferometric Calibration Using The SAGE Algorithm
• Probing Reionization with the 21 cm-Galaxy Cross Power Spectrum
• Spectral Index of the Diffuse Radio Background Measured From 100 to 200 MHz
• Foregrounds for redshifted 21 cm studies of reionization: GMRT 153 MHz observations
• Toward Empirical Constraints on the Global Redshifted 21 cm Brightness Temperature During the Epoch of Reionization
• TRAPHIC - Radiative Transfer for Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics Simulations
• Lyman Alpha Emitters at Redshift 5.7 in the COSMOS Field
• Non-parametric foreground subtraction for 21cm epoch of reionization experiments
• Fast Large-Scale Reionization Simulations
• The simulated 21 cm signal during the epoch of reionization : full modeling of the Ly-alpha pumping
• The impact of dark matter decays and annihilations on the formation of the first structures
• Secondary anisotropies of the CMB
• De-contamination of cosmological 21-cm maps
• Constraining the population of 6 < z < 10 star-forming galaxies with deep near-IR images of lensing clusters
• The Cosmic Microwave Background and the Ionization History of the Universe
• Time-evolution of ionization and heating around first stars and miniquasars
• On the Size of HII Regions around High Redshift Quasars
• Detection and extraction of signals from the epoch of reionization using higher order one-point statistics
• The morphology of cosmological reionization by means of Minkowski Functionals
• Current models of the observable consequences of cosmic reionization and their detectability
• Heating of the Intergalactic Medium by Primordial Miniquasars
• The Impact of Lyman alpha Trapping on the Formation of Primordial Objects
• Spin Exchange Rates in Proton-Hydrogen Collisions
• The 21 Centimeter Forest
• IR Background Anisotropies in Spitzer GOODS images and constraints on first galaxies
• Detecting the redshifted 21cm forest during reionization
• Interpreting the Transmission Windows of Distant Quasars
• Lyman alpha emission from the first galaxies: Implications of UV backgrounds and the formation of molecules
• On the spin-temperature evolution during the epoch of reionization
• Lyman alpha emission from the first galaxies: Signatures of accretion and infall in the presence of line trapping
• The cross-correlation of the CMB polarisation and the 21-cm line fluctuations from cosmic reionisation

Cited by in corpus (78)

• Upper limits on the 21-cm Epoch of Reionization power spectrum from one night with LOFAR
• 21CMMC: an MCMC analysis tool enabling astrophysical parameter studies of the cosmic 21 cm signal
• First Season MWA EoR Power Spectrum Results at Redshift 7
• First Light And Reionisation Epoch Simulations (FLARES) I: Environmental Dependence of High-Redshift Galaxy Evolution
• First results on the Epoch of Reionization from First Light with SARAS 2
• The Luminosity Function at z~8 from 97 Y-band dropouts: Inferences About Reionization
• Constraining the intergalactic medium at $z\approx$ 9.1 using LOFAR Epoch of Reionization observations
• LyC escape from SPHINX galaxies in the Epoch of Reionization
• The Importance of Wide-field Foreground Removal for 21 cm Cosmology: A Demonstration With Early MWA Epoch of Reionization Observations
• The Aurora radiation-hydrodynamical simulations of reionization: calibration and first results
• Redundant Array Configurations for 21 cm Cosmology
• Looking at cosmic near-infrared background radiation anisotropies
• The Murchison Widefield Array 21 cm Power Spectrum Analysis Methodology
• Exploring reionisation and high-z galaxy observables with recent multi-redshift MWA upper limits on the 21-cm signal
• Mitigating the Effects of Antenna-to-Antenna Variation on Redundant-Baseline Calibration for 21 cm Cosmology
• Illuminating the dark ages: Cosmic backgrounds from accretion onto primordial black hole dark matter
• Constraining the state of the intergalactic medium during the Epoch of Reionization using MWA 21-cm signal observations
• Comparing Foreground Removal Techniques for Recovery of the LOFAR-EoR 21cm Power Spectrum
• Young Galaxy Candidates in the Hubble Frontier Fields - III. MACSJ0717.5+3745
• Redundant-Baseline Calibration of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array
• Parsec-scale properties of the radio brightest jetted AGN at z > 6
• Measuring the topology of reionization with Betti numbers
• Polarized Redundant-Baseline Calibration for 21 cm Cosmology Without Adding Spectral Structure
• Practical Modeling of Large-Scale Galactic Magnetic Fields: Status and Prospects
• The AARTFAAC Cosmic Explorer: observations of the 21-cm power spectrum in the EDGES absorption trough
• The first Super Massive Black Holes: indications from models for future observations
• Deep learning approach for identification of HII regions during reionization in 21-cm observations
• Sky reconstruction from transit visibilities: PAON-4 and Tianlai Dish Array
• Wide-field LOFAR-LBA power-spectra analyses: Impact of calibration, polarization leakage and ionosphere
• Constraints on the temperature of the intergalactic medium at z=8.4 with 21-cm observations
• [CII] line intensity mapping the epoch of reionization with the Prime-Cam on FYST
• PRATUSH experiment concept and design overview
• Foreground modelling via Gaussian process regression: an application to HERA data
• RELICS: Strong Lensing analysis of the galaxy clusters Abell S295, Abell 697, MACS J0025.4-1222, and MACS J0159.8-0849
• Supermassive Black Holes in the Early Universe
• The impact of inhomogeneous subgrid clumping on cosmic reionization II: modelling stochasticity
• Detection of Cosmic Structures using the Bispectrum Phase. II. First Results from Application to Cosmic Reionization Using the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array
• Measuring HERA's primary beam in-situ: methodology and first results
• The importance of stochasticity in determining galaxy emissivities and UV LFs during cosmic dawn and reionization
• 21cm Signal Recovery via the Robust Principle Component Analysis
• Cosmological Constraints on the Coupling Model from Observational Hubble Parameter and Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Measurements
• Microquasars as heating sources of the intergalactic medium during reionisation of the Universe
• First study of reionization in tilted flat and untilted non-flat dynamical dark energy inflation models
• Measurements of effective optical depth in the Ly$\alpha$ forest from the BOSS DR12 Quasar sample
• Calibration Requirements for Epoch of Reionization 21-cm signal observations -- I. Effect of time-correlated gains
• Constraints on the state of the IGM at $z\sim 8-10$ using redshifted 21-cm observations with LOFAR
• Cornering Extended Starobinsky Inflation with CMB and SKA
• All Sky Modelling Requirements for Bayesian 21 cm Power Spectrum Estimation with BayesEoR
• Reionization in the dark and the light from Cosmic Microwave Background
• Transient RFI environment of LOFAR-LBA at 72-75 MHz: Impact on ultra-widefield AARTFAAC Cosmic Explorer observations of the redshifted 21-cm signal
• Contribution of Radio Halos to the Foreground for SKA EoR Experiments
• PINION: Physics-informed neural network for accelerating radiative transfer simulations for cosmic reionization
• Astrophysical information from the Rayleigh-Jeans Tail of the CMB
• Ionospheric contributions to the excess power in high-redshift 21-cm power-spectrum observations with LOFAR
• Statistical Performance of Radio Interferometric Calibration
• Pre-selection of the Candidate Fields for Deep Imaging of the Epoch of Reionization with SKA1-Low
• The impact of non-Planckian effects on cosmological radio backgrounds
• Studying the Multi-frequency Angular Power Spectrum of the Cosmic Dawn 21-cm Signal
• Prospects of FRBs and Large Scale 21 cm Power Spectra in Constraining the Epoch of Reionization
• Comparing sampling techniques to chart parameter space of 21 cm Global signal with Artificial Neural Networks
• Cosmic Reionization Study : Principle Component Analysis After Planck
• Resummed Kinetic Field Theory: a model of coupled baryonic and dark matter
• Simulations of ionospheric refraction on radio interferometric data
• Probing the physics and history of cosmic reionization with the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect
• [CII] luminosity models and large-scale image cubes based on COSMOS 2020 and ALPINE-ALMA [CII] data back to the epoch of reionisation
• Efficient Modelling of Lyman-α opacity fluctuations during late reionization epoch
• A resolved Lyman-Alpha profile with doubly peaked emission at z~7
• The haloes that reionized the Universe
• Quarks to Cosmos: Particles and Plasma in Cosmological evolution
• Exploring Machine Learning Regression Models for Advancing Foreground Mitigation and Global 21cm Signal Parameter Extraction
• Modified Cosmology or Modified Galaxy Astrophysics is Driving the z>6 JWST Results? CMB Experiments can discover the Origin in the Near Future
• Combined lensed estimator to probe the post reionization H I power spectrum
• A Monte Carlo Implementation of Galactic Free-Free Emission for the EoR Foreground Models
• First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time
• Reionization in HESTIA: Studying reionization in the LG through zoom simulations
• Imaging and Modeling Data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array
• An SBC-based controller and processor for the laboratory model of PRATUSH Digital Receiver
• Probing the Inflaton Potential with SKA