Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• B. Wyithe, J. Stuart
• Loeb, Abraham

Titel

Undetected Sources Allow Transmission of the Lyα Line from Galaxies Prior to Reionization

Ist Teil von

• The Astrophysical journal, 2005-05, Vol.625 (1), p.1-5

Ort / Verlag

Chicago, IL: IOP Publishing

Erscheinungsjahr

2005

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Elektronische Zeitschriftenbibliothek - Frei zugängliche E-Journals

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• The discovery of Ly alpha emission from galaxies at redshifts beyond z similar to 6.5 should not be naively interpreted as implying that the intergalactic medium (IGM) had been reionized at higher redshifts. We show that a cluster of faint undetected sources around each observed galaxy can increase the volume of the galaxy's H II region by an order of magnitude. As a result, we find that the H II regions around massive galaxies would have been large enough to allow transmission of the galaxy's Ly alpha line prior to reionization. We also show that quasars may contribute a significant fraction of the ionizing photons to H II regions around galaxies with a velocity dispersion larger than similar to 100 km s super(-1). These contributing quasars are not usually seen because of the small fraction of time they spend in a luminous phase.