Quasars as probes of cosmological reionization
File(s)1511.01107v1.pdf (961.7 KB)
Accepted version
Author(s)
Mortlock, Daniel
Type
Chapter
Abstract
Quasars are the most luminous non-transient sources in the epoch of cosmological reionization (which ended a billion years after the Big Bang, corresponding to a redshift of z ≃ 5), and are powerful probes of the inter-galactic medium at that time. This review covers current efforts to identify high-redshift quasars and how they have been used to constrain the reionization history. This includes a full description of the various processes by which neutral hydrogen atoms can absorb/scatter ultraviolet photons, and which lead to the Gunn-Peterson effect, dark gap and dark pixel analyses, quasar near zones and damping wing absorption. Finally, the future prospects for using quasars as probes of reionization are described.
Date Issued
2016
Citation
Understanding the Epoch of Cosmic Reionization, 2016, 423, pp.187-226
ISBN
9783319219561
Publisher
Springer International Publishing
Start Page
187
End Page
226
Journal / Book Title
Understanding the Epoch of Cosmic Reionization
Astrophysics and Space Science Library
Volume
423
Copyright Statement
© 2016 Springer-Verlag. The final publication is available at Springer via https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-21957-8_7.
Subjects
astro-ph.CO
astro-ph.CO
Publication Status
Published