The Physics and Early History of the Intergalactic Medium

Abstract

The intergalactic medium - the cosmic gas that fills the great spaces between the galaxies - is affected by processes ranging from quantum fluctuations in the very early universe to radiative emission from newly-formed stars. This gives the intergalactic medium a dual role as a powerful probe both of fundamental physics and of astrophysics. The heading of fundamental physics includes conditions in the very early universe and basic cosmological parameters. The astrophysics refers to chapters of the long cosmic history of stars and galaxies that are being revealed through the effects of stellar feedback on the cosmic gas. This review describes the physics of the intergalactic medium, focusing on recent theoretical and observational developments in understanding early cosmic history. In particular, radiation from the earliest generation of stars is thought to have transformed the universe, turning the surrounding atoms into free electrons and ions. Knowing exactly when and how the reionization process happened is a primary goal of cosmologists, because this would tell us when the early stars and black holes formed and in what kinds of galaxies. Cosmic reionization is beginning to be understood with the help of theoretical models and computer simulations. A wide variety of instruments currently under design will probe the first sources of light during an epoch in cosmic history that has been largely unexplored so far. The new observations and the challenges for theoretical models and numerical simulations will motivate intense work in this field over the coming decade. (abridged)

36 pages, 17 figures, Reports on Progress in Physics (Invited Review), revised version

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• Soft X-ray Absorption by High-Redshift Intergalactic Helium

Cited by in corpus (80)

• The Physics of Gamma-Ray Bursts and Relativistic Jets
• The Primordial Inflation Explorer (PIXIE): A Nulling Polarimeter for Cosmic Microwave Background Observations
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• Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Intensity Mapping as a Test of Dark Energy
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• 21CMMC: an MCMC analysis tool enabling astrophysical parameter studies of the cosmic 21 cm signal
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• Probing the Formation of the First Low-Mass Stars with Stellar Archaeology
• Evolution of the 21 cm signal throughout cosmic history
• Possibility of Precise Measurement of the Cosmological Power Spectrum With a Dedicated 21cm Survey After Reionization
• The Neutral Hydrogen Cosmological Mass Density at z=5
• The Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Broadband and Broad-beam Array: Design Overview and Sensitivity Forecasts
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• A simplified, lossless re-analysis of PAPER-64
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• Constraining the primordial initial mass function with stellar archaeology
• The First Galaxies: Signatures of the Initial Starburst
• Forecasts on the Dark Energy and Primordial Non-Gaussianity Observations with the Tianlai Cylinder Array
• The First Galaxies: Assembly of Disks and Prospects for Direct Detection
• The minimum stellar metallicity observable in the Galaxy
• The Evolution of the Lyman-Alpha Luminosity Function During Reionization
• The Lyman-alpha signature of the first galaxies
• Probing Intergalactic Neutral Hydrogen by the Lyman Alpha Red Damping Wing of Gamma-Ray Burst 130606A Afterglow Spectrum at z = 5.913
• How Dark Matter Reionized The Universe
• Signatures of reionization on Lyman alpha emitters
• The Impact of Foregrounds on Redshift Space Distortion Measurements With the Highly-Redshifted 21 cm Line
• The 21cm Power Spectrum After Reionization
• The foreground wedge and 21 cm BAO surveys
• Galactic ionising photon budget during the Epoch of Reionisation in the Cosmic Dawn II simulation
• 21 cm observation of LSS at z~1 Instrument sensitivity and foreground subtraction
• The first galaxies: simulating their feedback-regulated assembly
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• Modeling The Large Scale Bias of Neutral Hydrogen
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• HI 21cm Cosmology and the Bi-spectrum: Closure Diagnostics in Massively Redundant Interferometric Arrays
• Primordial Globular Clusters, X-Ray Binaries & Cosmological Reionisation
• A path to precision cosmology: synergy between four promising late-universe cosmological probes
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• Background reionization history from omniscopes
• On the decreasing fraction of Strong Ly$\alpha$ Emitters around $z$ $\sim$ $6$-$7$
• Constraints on the temperature of the intergalactic medium at z=8.4 with 21-cm observations
• Probing Early Cosmic Magnetic Fields through Pair Echos from High-Redshift GRBs
• High Precision Analyses of Lyman alpha Damping Wing of Gamma-Ray Bursts in the Reionization Era: On the Controversial Results from GRB 130606A at z = 5.91
• Measuring the History of Cosmic Reionization using the 21-cm PDF from Simulations
• Signatures of clumpy dark matter in the global 21 cm background signal
• Primordial black holes in the Dark Ages: Observational prospects for future 21cm surveys
• Detectability of CMB tensor B modes via delensing with weak lensing galaxy surveys
• Joint estimation of the Epoch of Reionization power spectrum and foregrounds
• Signatures of First Stars in Galaxy Surveys: Multi-Tracer Analysis of the Supersonic Relative Velocity Effect and the Constraints from the BOSS Power Spectrum Measurements
• Detecting Cosmic Reionization using Bi-Spectrum Phase
• Self-Consistent Solution of Cosmological Radiation-Hydrodynamics and Chemical Ionization
• An Observational Limit on the Earliest GRBs
• Prospects for measuring dark energy with 21 cm intensity mapping experiments: A joint survey strategy
• Gamma-ray bursts and Population III stars
• Signature of the first galaxies in JWST deep field observations
• Detection of Cosmic Structures using the Bispectrum Phase. II. First Results from Application to Cosmic Reionization Using the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array
• BAORadio: A digital pipeline for radio interferometry and 21 cm mapping of large scale structures
• The HI mass function as a probe of photoionisation feedback on low mass galaxy formation
• Combining high-z galaxy luminosity functions with Bayesian evidence
• Statistics of 21-cm Fluctuations in Cosmic Reionization Simulations: PDFs and Difference PDFs
• The Halo Occupation Distribution of HI from 21cm Intensity Mapping at Moderate Redshifts
• Planck and reionization history: a model selection view
• Intergalactic baryon-rich regions at high redshift
• Clumping factors of HII, HeII and HeIII
• Detection of Cosmic Structures using the Bispectrum Phase. I. Mathematical Foundations
• Upper Limits on the 21 cm Power Spectrum at z = 5.9 from Quasar Absorption Line Spectroscopy
• Anisotropies in Cosmological 21 cm Background by Oscillons/I-balls of Ultra-light Axion-like Particle
• Clustering at 74 MHz
• Let there be Light: the Emergence of Structure out of the Dark Ages in the Early Universe
• Enabling Radiative Transfer on AMR grids in CRASH
• The Impact of ionization Morphology and X-ray Heating on the Cosmological 21cm Skew Spectrum
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• Supernovae at the cosmic dawn
• CMB anisotropies from patchy reionisation and diffuse Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effects
• The signature of galaxy formation models in the power spectrum of the hydrogen 21cm line during reionization
• The Infancy of Cosmic Reionization
• Is a Classical Language Adequate in Assessing the Detectability of the Redshifted 21cm Signal from the Early Universe?