The Thermal History Of The Intergalactic Medium

Author : Alexander Peter Calverley
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : pages
Book Rating : 4.:/5 (798 download)

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Download or read book Probing the Intergalactic Medium with High-redshift Quasars written by Alexander Peter Calverley and published by . This book was released on 2011 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Clues about the timing of reionization and the nature of the ionizing sources responsible are imprinted in the ionization and thermal state of the IGM. In this thesis, I use high-resolution quasar spectra in conjunction with state-of-the-art hydrodynamical simulations to probe the IGM at high redshift, focusing on the ionization and thermal state of the gas. After reionization, the ionization state of the IGM is set by the intensity of the ultraviolet background(UVB), quantified by the hydrogen photoionization rate,?_bkg. At high redshifts this has been estimated by measuring the mean flux in the Ly? forest, and scaling?_bkg in simulations such that the simulated mean flux matches the observed value. In Chapter 3 I investigate whether the precision of these estimates can be improved by using the entire flux probability distribution function (PDF) instead of only the mean flux. Although I find it cannot improve the precision directly, the flux PDF can potentially be used to constrain other sources of error in observational estimates of?_bkg, and somay increase the precision indirectly. The ionizing output of a quasar will locally dominate over the UVB, and this leads to enhanced transmission bluewards of the quasar Ly? line, known as the proximity effect. In Chapter 4 I present the first measurements of?_bkg at z> 5 from the proximity effect. The UVB intensity declines smoothly with redshift over 4.6 z 6.4, implying a smooth evolution in the mean free path of ionizing photons. This suggests that reionization ends at z 6.4. There is a drop in?_bkg by roughly a factor of five, which corresponds to a drop in the ionizing emissivity by about a factor of two. Such a redshift evolution in the emissivity cannot continue to much higher redshift without reionization failing to complete, which suggests that reionization cannot have ended much higher than z = 6.4. Estimates of?_bkg from the proximity effect and the mean flux are generally discrepant at z? 2?4, with those from the proximity effect systematically higher. This is generally attributed to effects of the quasar environment. I investigate the significance of several environmental biases on proximityeffect measurements at z? 5?6 in Chapter 5. The biases are found to be small, and so the proximity effect is expected to give relatively unbiased estimates of?_bkg at z 5, in contrast to lower redshifts. Photoionization heats the gas in the IGM, and so the thermal history of the IGM provides important constraints on reionization. The thermal state of the IGM is reflected in the level of small-scalestructure in the Ly? forest. In Chapter 6 I quantify the small-scale structure using two independent statistics, the curvature and the peakiness, and convert these into a temperature by comparing with simulations. These are the first measurements of the temperature in the general IGM at z> 5. Bothstatistics show an increase in the temperature by a factor of roughly two from z = 4.4 to 5.6. This rise is sensitive, however, to any smoothing of the gas density distribution due to the thermal historyspanning reionization. I find that this should only be a small effect, as otherwise the corrected temperatures at z? 4?5 are implausibly low. The temperature evolution therefore suggests a late reionization. The temperatures at z? 4.8 are well fit by an adiabatic cooling curve, for which reasonablepeak temperatures at the end of reionization are reached at 6? z? 7. The temperatures atz? 4?5 are consistent with reionization being carried out by Pop II stars. In conclusion, the ionization and thermal state of the IGM at z? 5?6 suggest a late hydrogen reionization, driven by star-forming galaxies and ending around 6.5? z? 7. This is consistent with other recent lines of observational evidence, and supports theoretical models that infer a late reionization from the observed star formation rate history.