You are here

Revealing the physics of reionization with high-redshift quasars, JWST observations, and simulations of the IGM

Christopher Cain, Arizona State University
Tuesday, April 29, 2025 - 3:00pm
PAT C-421

High-redshift observations probing the epoch of reionization can reveal both its timeline and the properties of the sources responsible for driving it.  The spectra of bright quasars have recently revealed a wealth of information about the tail end of reionization up to z = 6, and JWST is probing the galaxy population up to z = 14, deep into reionization.  Such observations can be interpreted using self-consistent radiative transfer simulations of reionization that capture the large-scale clustering of galaxies and the effect of kpc-scale physics on the absorption of ionizing photons by the IGM.  First, I will describe some recent efforts to learn about reionization's timeline within such a framework using data from quasars, JWST, and other probes.  I will also discuss what quasar data is telling us about the evolution of the ionizing output of galaxies at reionization's end, and what this means for their ionizing properties in the context of recent HST and JWST observations.  Lastly, I will talk about some recent efforts to simulate small-scale intergalactic structure and its interplay with reionization, which include some unexpected and exicting new findings.

Share