The Impact of The IGM on High-Redshift Lyman Alpha Emission Lines

Details The Impact of The IGM on High-Redshift Lyman Alpha Emission Lines The Impact of The IGM on High-Redshift Lyman Alpha Emission Lines

2007-01-23

arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0701667v2

Mon.Not.Roy.Astron.Soc.377:1175-1186,2007

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics

14 pages, 8 figures, MNRAS in press, minor changes, references added, some typos fixed

Scientific paper

10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11666.x

We calculate the impact of the intergalactic medium (IGM) on the observed Lyman alpha lines (hereafter Lya) emitted by galaxies in an ionised IGM at z>4. Our model accounts for gas clumping in the IGM and for the fact that high-redshift galaxies reside in overdense regions, which causes the velocity field of the IGM to depart from the Hubble flow. The observed shape of the Lya line varies widely, with dependence on the intrinsic width and systemic velocity of the line, a galaxies star formation rate and the local extra-galactic UV-background. For large star formation rates and levels of the UV-background, absorption in the IGM does not result in a Lya line that is asymmetric as is common among known high-redshift Lya emitters. For models in which the lines do show the observed strong asymmetry, the IGM typically transmits only 10-30% of the Lya flux. The increase in the ionising background that accompanied the completion of reionisation barely increased the IGM transmission, which suggests that LAEs of comparable luminosity should not appear to be significantly dimmer prior to overlap. In this light, we briefly discuss the potential of Lya emitters as a probe into the epoch of reionisation.

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