Bubbles at cosmic dawn: charting the progress of reionization

We request funding for a postdocoral researcher over a 3-year period.

The researcher will exploit data from ESO’s Very Large Telescope, as part of a ‘Large Program’ (128 hours) that was recently awarded to the principal applicant of this VR project.

The theme is an observational study of the epoch of reionization (EoR) which, having occurred just ~700 million years after the big bang, was the last time our universe underwent a major phase transition (from atomic gas to mainly ionized plasma).

We will capitalize upon recent advances made by our group, that show how galaxy observations can make accurate measurements of the progress of reionization, which culminated in the award for the VLT large program.

Specifically, we will target the Lyman alpha emission from galaxies identified in the EoR, obtaining spectra at unprecedented depth and spectral resolution, for a transformatively large sample of ~240 galaxies.

The project has two overarching scientific deliverables: A. to provide a unique and fully independent measurement of the size of ionized regions of intergalactic space when the universe was just 5% its current age, and B. to simultaneously determine the level of the ionizing background – the radiation budget available for reionization.The research uses VR Infrastructure directly (ESO), builds towards future infrastructure (ELT), and is aligned with main scientific objectives of the SKA.