Probing the thermal state of the intergalactic medium at $z>5$ with the transmission spikes in high-resolution Ly$\alpha$ forest spectra

Prakash Gaikwad, Michael Rauch, Martin G. Haehnelt +13

We compare a sample of five high-resolution, high S/N Ly$\alpha$ forest spectra of bright $6<z\lesssim 6.5$ QSOs aimed at spectrally resolving the last remaining transmission spikes at…