The Universe is at Most 88% Neutral at z = 10.6
Recent observations of GN-z11 with JWST have revealed a Ly α emission line with an equivalent width (EW) of 18 ± 2 Å. At z = 10.6, this galaxy is expected to lie in the heart of reionization. We use a series of inhomogeneous reionization simulations to derive the distribution of the Ly α EW after tr...
| Main Authors: | , , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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IOP Publishing
2023-01-01
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| Series: | The Astrophysical Journal Letters |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/acd5d0 |
| _version_ | 1797699465494134784 |
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| author | Sean Bruton Yu-Heng Lin Claudia Scarlata Matthew J. Hayes |
| author_facet | Sean Bruton Yu-Heng Lin Claudia Scarlata Matthew J. Hayes |
| author_sort | Sean Bruton |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | Recent observations of GN-z11 with JWST have revealed a Ly α emission line with an equivalent width (EW) of 18 ± 2 Å. At z = 10.6, this galaxy is expected to lie in the heart of reionization. We use a series of inhomogeneous reionization simulations to derive the distribution of the Ly α EW after traveling through the neutral intergalactic medium with varying average neutral gas fraction, x _H I . We use these distributions to place an upper limit of x _H I < 0.88 at z = 10.6 at 95% confidence level. We compare our upper limit to different reionization history models, which include the recently identified enhancement at the bright end of the luminosity function at z > 8. We find that models in which faint galaxies have a higher escape fraction compared to bright galaxies are favored by the new data. |
| first_indexed | 2024-03-12T04:08:34Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-121f5156c0a042458c1c2ea9139f0c34 |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2041-8205 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-03-12T04:08:34Z |
| publishDate | 2023-01-01 |
| publisher | IOP Publishing |
| record_format | Article |
| series | The Astrophysical Journal Letters |
| spelling | doaj.art-121f5156c0a042458c1c2ea9139f0c342023-09-03T11:08:51ZengIOP PublishingThe Astrophysical Journal Letters2041-82052023-01-019492L4010.3847/2041-8213/acd5d0The Universe is at Most 88% Neutral at z = 10.6Sean Bruton0https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6503-5218Yu-Heng Lin1https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8792-3091Claudia Scarlata2https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9136-8876Matthew J. Hayes3https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8587-218XMinnesota Institute for Astrophysics, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA ; bruto012@umn.edu; School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USAMinnesota Institute for Astrophysics, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA ; bruto012@umn.edu; School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USAMinnesota Institute for Astrophysics, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA ; bruto012@umn.edu; School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Minnesota , 116 Church St. SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USAStockholm University , Department of Astronomy and Oskar Klein Centre for Cosmoparticle Physics, AlbaNova University Centre, SE-10691, Stockholm, SwedenRecent observations of GN-z11 with JWST have revealed a Ly α emission line with an equivalent width (EW) of 18 ± 2 Å. At z = 10.6, this galaxy is expected to lie in the heart of reionization. We use a series of inhomogeneous reionization simulations to derive the distribution of the Ly α EW after traveling through the neutral intergalactic medium with varying average neutral gas fraction, x _H I . We use these distributions to place an upper limit of x _H I < 0.88 at z = 10.6 at 95% confidence level. We compare our upper limit to different reionization history models, which include the recently identified enhancement at the bright end of the luminosity function at z > 8. We find that models in which faint galaxies have a higher escape fraction compared to bright galaxies are favored by the new data.https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/acd5d0ReionizationHigh-redshift galaxies |
| spellingShingle | Sean Bruton Yu-Heng Lin Claudia Scarlata Matthew J. Hayes The Universe is at Most 88% Neutral at z = 10.6 The Astrophysical Journal Letters Reionization High-redshift galaxies |
| title | The Universe is at Most 88% Neutral at z = 10.6 |
| title_full | The Universe is at Most 88% Neutral at z = 10.6 |
| title_fullStr | The Universe is at Most 88% Neutral at z = 10.6 |
| title_full_unstemmed | The Universe is at Most 88% Neutral at z = 10.6 |
| title_short | The Universe is at Most 88% Neutral at z = 10.6 |
| title_sort | universe is at most 88 neutral at z 10 6 |
| topic | Reionization High-redshift galaxies |
| url | https://doi.org/10.3847/2041-8213/acd5d0 |
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