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The origin of the characteristic shape and scatter of intergalactic damping wings during reionization

Keating, Laura C; Puchwein, Ewald; Bolton, James S; Haehnelt, Martin G; Kulkarni, Girish

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Authors

Laura C Keating

Ewald Puchwein

Profile image of JAMES BOLTON

JAMES BOLTON James.Bolton@nottingham.ac.uk
Professor of Astrophysics

Martin G Haehnelt

Girish Kulkarni



Abstract

Ly α damping wings in the spectra of bright objects at high redshift are a useful probe of the ionization state of the intergalactic medium during the reionization epoch. It has recently been noted that, despite the inhomogeneous nature of reionization, these damping wings have a characteristic shape which is a strong function of the volume-weighted average neutral hydrogen fraction of the intergalactic medium. We present here a closer examination of this finding using a simulation of patchy reionization from the Sherwood–Relics simulation suite. We show that the characteristic shape and scatter of the damping wings are determined by the average neutral hydrogen density along the line of sight, weighted by its contribution to the optical depth producing the damping wing. We find that there is a redshift dependence in the characteristic shape due to the expansion of the Universe. Finally, we show that it is possible to differentiate between the shapes of damping wings in galaxies and young (or faint) quasars at different points in the reionization history at large velocity offsets from the point where the transmission first reaches zero.

Citation

Keating, L. C., Puchwein, E., Bolton, J. S., Haehnelt, M. G., & Kulkarni, G. (2024). The origin of the characteristic shape and scatter of intergalactic damping wings during reionization. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters, 531(1), L34-L39. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slae022

Journal Article Type Article
Acceptance Date Mar 8, 2024
Online Publication Date Apr 8, 2024
Publication Date 2024-06
Deposit Date Apr 15, 2024
Publicly Available Date Apr 18, 2024
Journal Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society: Letters
Electronic ISSN 1745-3933
Publisher Oxford University Press
Peer Reviewed Peer Reviewed
Volume 531
Issue 1
Pages L34-L39
DOI https://doi.org/10.1093/mnrasl/slae022
Keywords methods: numerical, galaxies: high-redshift, intergalactic medium, dark ages, reionization, first stars
Public URL https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/33567331
Publisher URL https://academic.oup.com/mnrasl/advance-article/doi/10.1093/mnrasl/slae022/7642250

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