Intergalactic Lyman-$\hat{I}\pm$ haloes before reionization are detectable with JWST

Abstract

The $JamesWebbSpaceTelescope(JWST)$ recently reported a large population of UV luminous galaxies at high redshifts, $z>10$, as well as Lyman-$\hat{I}\pm$ emitting (LAE) galaxies out to $z\sim 11$. We use the observed UV luminosities along with a data-driven approach at lower redshifts to place constraints on the observability of the intergalactic Lyman-$\hat{I}\pm$ intensity, scattered in the form of Loeb-Rybicki haloes, during the pre-reionization and reionization epochs ($z\sim 9-16$). We forecast the sensitivity and resolution required to detect these intergalactic haloes, finding that individual haloes with LAE luminosities $>10^{43}$ ergs/s are detectable at a few sigma level at $z\lesssim 9$, while stacking of $\sim 10$ haloes is expected to result in detections out to $z\sim 16$. Finding these haloes is expected to shed light on the neutral intergalactic hydrogen during cosmic reionization.

15 pages, 3 figures, 2 tables; version accepted for publication in JCAP