Published online in Contemporary Physics on 15 July 2019.
https://arxiv.org/abs/1907.06653

For a PDF version of the article, click here.

Abstract: The universe goes through several phase transitions during its formative stages. Cosmic reionization is the last of them, where ultraviolet and X-ray radiation escape from the first generations of galaxies heating and ionizing their surroundings and subsequently the entire intergalactic medium. There is strong observational evidence that cosmic reionization ended approximately one billion years after the Big Bang, but there are still uncertainties that will be clarified with upcoming optical, infrared, and radio facilities in the next decade. This article gives an introduction to the theoretical and observational aspects of cosmic reionization and discusses their role in our understanding of early galaxy formation and cosmology.

Keywords : cosmology; reionization; galaxy formation; first stars

Table of Contents

• HISTORICAL PREFACE
• BACKGROUND ASTROPHYSICS
• Cosmology
• Large-Scale Structure
• Ionization and recombination
• Evolution of an H ii region
• ENDING THE COSMIC DARK AGES
• The Dark Ages
• The first stars
• The first galaxies
• The first black holes
• CONSTRAINTS FROM THE EDGE OF THE OBSERVABLE UNIVERSE
• QSO Spectra
• The Lyα forest
• Cosmic microwave background
• Neutral hydrogen (21 cm) absorption and emission
• Sources of reionization
• Summary of observations
• REIONIZATION MODELING
• Volume-averaged analytical models
• Semi-numeric models
• Cosmological radiative transfer simulations
• Full radiation hydrodynamics simulations
• CONCLUSIONS
• REFERENCES