IGM damping wing constraints on reionisation from covariance reconstruction of two $z\gtrsim 7$ QSOs

Abstract

Bright, high redshift ($z>6$) QSOs are powerful probes of the ionisation state of the intervening intergalactic medium (IGM). The detection of Ly$\alpha$ damping wing absorption imprinted in the spectrum of high-z QSOs can provide strong constraints on the epoch of reionisation (EoR). In this work, we perform an independent Ly$\alpha$ damping wing analysis of two known $z>7$ QSOs; DESJ0252-0503 at $z=7.00$ (Wang et al.) and J1007+2115 at $z=7.51$ (Yang et al.). For this, we utilise our existing Bayesian framework which simultaneously accounts for uncertainties in: (i) the intrinsic Ly$\alpha$ emission profile (reconstructed from a covariance matrix of measured emission lines; extended in this work to include NV) and (ii) the distribution of ionised (H\,{\scriptsize II}) regions within the IGM using a $1.6^3$ Gpc${}^3$ reionisation simulation. This approach is complementary to that used in the aforementioned works as it focuses solely redward of Ly$\alpha$ ($1218<\lambda <1230$Å) making it more robust to modelling uncertainties while also using a different methodology for (i) and (ii). We find, for a fiducial EoR morphology, ${\bar{x}}_{\mathrm{HI}}=0.64\begin{array}{c}+0.19\\ -0.23\end{array}$ (68 per cent) at $z=7$ and ${\bar{x}}_{\mathrm{HI}}=0.27\begin{array}{c}+0.21\\ -0.17\end{array}$ at $z=7.51$ consistent within $1\sigma$ to the previous works above, though both are slightly lower in amplitude. Following the inclusion of NV into our reconstruction pipeline, we perform a reanalysis of ULASJ1120+0641 at $z=7.09$ (Mortlock et al.) and ULASJ1342+0928 at $z=7.54$ (Bañados et al.) finding ${\bar{x}}_{\mathrm{HI}}=0.44\begin{array}{c}+0.23\\ -0.24\end{array}$ at $z=7.09$ and ${\bar{x}}_{\mathrm{HI}}=0.31\begin{array}{c}+0.18\\ -0.19\end{array}$ at $z=7.54$. Finally, we combine the QSO damping wing constraints for all four $z\gtrsim 7$ QSOs to obtain a single, unified constraint of ${\bar{x}}_{\mathrm{HI}}=0.49\begin{array}{c}+0.11\\ -0.11\end{array}$ at $z=7.29$.

15 pages, 9 figures. Submitted to MNRAS, comments welcome

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