Are we witnessing the epoch of reionisation at $z=7.1$ from the spectrum of J1120+0641?

Abstract

We quantify the presence of Lyα damping wing absorption from a partially-neutral intergalactic medium (IGM) in the spectrum of the $z=7.08$ QSO, ULASJ1120+0641. Using a Bayesian framework, we simultaneously account for uncertainties in: (i) the intrinsic QSO emission spectrum; and (ii) the distribution of cosmic HI patches during the epoch of reionisation (EoR). For (i) we use a new intrinsic Lyα emission line reconstruction method (Greig et al.), sampling a covariance matrix of emission line properties built from a large database of moderate-$z$ QSOs. For (ii), we use the Evolution of 21-cm Structure (EOS; Mesinger et al.) simulations, which span a range of physically-motivated EoR models. We find strong evidence for the presence of damping wing absorption redward of Lyα (where there is no contamination from the Lyα forest). Our analysis implies that the EoR is not yet complete by $z=7.1$, with the volume-weighted IGM neutral fraction constrained to ${\bar{x}}_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}=0.40\begin{array}{c}+0.21-0.19\end{array}$ at $1\sigma$ (${\bar{x}}_{\mathrm{H}\mathrm{I}}=0.40\begin{array}{c}+0.41-0.32\end{array}$ at $2\sigma$). This result is insensitive to the EoR morphology. Our detection of significant neutral HI in the IGM at $z=7.1$ is consistent with the latest Planck 2016 measurements of the CMB Thompson scattering optical depth (Planck Collaboration XLVII).

12 pages, 7 figures, 1 table. Accepted to MNRAS, matches online version

References in corpus (2)

• Lyα emission line reconstruction for high-$z$ QSOs
• GRB 140515A at z=6.33: Constraints on the End of Reionization From a Gamma-ray Burst in a Low Hydrogen Column Density Environment

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