Speaker: Rebecca Bowler (Manchester)

Date: Wednesday 8 May 2024

Time: 15:00

Location: Berry lecture theatre (3.21)

The evolution of galaxies in the cosmic reionization era with JWST, ALMA and Euclid

The first galaxies are known to produce ionizing photons within compact star clusters that subsequently impact the Universe on vast scales. By blowing ionized bubbles, galaxies are thought to drive the highly significant ‘cosmic reionization’: the transition from a predominantly neutral to ionized inter-galactic medium.  The main drivers, timeline and morphology of the reionization process are still hotly debated, with the solution requiring observations on wide spatial and frequency scales to fully understand the connection of ionizing photon release (sub-kpc scales) to the impact on the cosmic web (at Mpc scales).

On the large scale, I will present current constraints on the prevalence of luminous reionization-era galaxies at z = 5-10 obtained from deep degree-scale optical + near-infrared surveys, and present the outlook for the revolutionary Euclid dataset currently being observed.  On the small scale, I will present new results from the REBELS ALMA + JWST programs, targeting a sample of UV-luminous galaxies to identify the small scale escape of ionizing photons and the impact of dust obscuration.