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Astrophysics > Astrophysics of Galaxies
Title: The Universe is at Most 88% Neutral at z=10.6
(Submitted on 6 Mar 2023 (v1), last revised 23 Jun 2023 (this version, v2))
Abstract: Recent observations of GN-z11 with JWST have revealed a Ly$\alpha$ emission line with an equivalent width of 18$\pm 2$ angstroms. At z=10.6, this galaxy is expected to lie in the heart of reionization. We use a series of inhomogeneous reionization simulations to derive the distribution of the Ly$\alpha$ EW after traveling through the neutral intergalactic medium with varying average neutral gas fraction, $x_{HI}$. We use these distribution to place an upper limit of $x_{HI} < $ 0.88 at z=10.6 at 95% confidence level. We compare our upper limit to different reionization history models, which include the recently identified enhancement at the bright end of the luminosity function at z>8. We find that models in which faint galaxies have higher escape fraction compared to bright galaxies are favored by the new data.
Submission history
From: Sean Bruton [view email][v1] Mon, 6 Mar 2023 19:00:05 GMT (1341kb,D)
[v2] Fri, 23 Jun 2023 17:50:20 GMT (1118kb,D)
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