An Introductory Review on Cosmic Reionization

Abstract

The universe goes through several phase transitions during its formative stages. Cosmic reionization is the last of them, where ultraviolet and X-ray radiation escape from the first generations of galaxies heating and ionizing their surroundings and subsequently the entire intergalactic medium. There is strong observational evidence that cosmic reionization ended approximately one billion years after the Big Bang, but there are still uncertainties that will be clarified with upcoming optical, infrared, and radio facilities in the next decade. This article gives an introduction to the theoretical and observational aspects of cosmic reionization and discusses their role in our understanding of early galaxy formation and cosmology.

Published online in Contemporary Physics on 15 July 2019. 30 pages, 10 figures

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Cited by in corpus (12)

• The ALMA REBELS Survey. Epoch of Reionization giants: properties of dusty galaxies at $z\approx 7$
• New Methods for Identifying Lyman Continuum Leakers and Reionization-Epoch Analogues
• On the AGN nature of two UV bright sources at z_spec~5.5 in the CANDELS fields: an update of the AGN space density at M1450~-22.5
• The future of astronomy with small satellites
• The Epoch of Reionization 21-cm Bispectrum: The impact of light-cone effects and detectability
• Probing Compensated Isocurvature with the 21-cm Signal during Cosmic Dawn
• Joint constraints on reionization: a framework for combining the global 21cm signal and the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect
• The Epoch of Reionization in Warm Dark Matter Scenarios
• Assuming Ionization Equilibrium and the Impact on the Lyman-$\alpha$ Forest Power Spectrum during the End of Reionization at $8\ge z\ge 5$
• Simulated differential observations of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect: Probing the Dark Ages and Epoch of Reionization
• Can luminous Lyman alpha emitters at $z$ $\simeq$ 5.7 and $z$ $\simeq$ 6.6 suppress star formation?
• First Light: Switching on Stars at the Dawn of Time