Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 360, Issue 1, Pages L64-L67Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2005.00048.x
Keywords
quasars : general; cosmology : theory; diffuse radiation; large-scale structure of Universe; radio lines : general
Categories
Ask authors/readers for more resources
We propose use of the thickness of the ionization front as a discriminant between alternative modes of reionization in the early Universe, by stars or by miniquasars. Assuming a photoionization-recombination balance, we find that for miniquasar sources the transition from neutral to ionized intergalactic medium is extended and has two features. The first is a sudden steep increase in the neutral fraction with a typical width of 5-10 comoving megaparsecs, depending on the miniquasar power. The second feature is a long wing that represents a much slower transition from a neutral fraction of approximate to 0.8 to 1. The angular resolution of LOFAR is expected to resolve these scales and will, therefore, play an important role in discriminating the hard sources of ionizing photons from the stellar ones.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available