How ISM properties drive Lyman Continuum Escape - Licentiate seminar held by Johannes Puschnig

Friday 9 Dec 2016, 13:00 → 15:00 Europe/Stockholm

FP21

The author reviews the current state of research related to the emission of ionizing photons, i.e. Lyman continuum (LyC). Star forming galaxies are discussed as sources of LyC. Observations of LyC leakage at all redshifts are summarized and escape fractions are brought into a cosmological context, i.e. its implications for the reionization of the Universe, one of the major gas phase changes that was completed already after ∼1Gyr after the Big Bang at redshift z ∼ 6. The main work focuses on observations of the local LyC leaking galaxy Tololo 1247-232. Physical properties of the interstellar medium, its porosity and neutral medium column density, could be derived using newly obtained Hubble Space Telescope (HST) data. The work is based on spectroscopy obtained with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph (COS), as well as optical and ultraviolet multi-band imaging with the Wide Field Camera 3 (WFC3).