Lyman-alpha diagnostics in the epochs of galaxy formation and cosmic reionization

by Mr Matthew Hayes (Stockholm Observatory)

Tuesday 22 Nov 2011, 13:15 → 14:15 Europe/Stockholm

FA32

By necessity the epochs of rapid galaxy growth/assembly and cosmic reionization were coeval, at roughly redshift z~6-11. While the focus of huge observational onslaughts in the last decade, many pieces of this puzzle remain far from constrained empirically. A non-exhaustive list includes the gas and dust content of young galaxies, the geometry of the circumgalactic medium, the physical mechanisms by which dark matter haloes acquire the gas they need to form galaxies, and the reionization history. In my talk I will present and discuss new observational and modelistic methods by which all of these quantities can be studied, united by the common theme of a single emission line: the n=2-1 transition of neutral hydrogen (HI Lyman-alpha).