Fluctuations in the High-Redshift Lyman-Werner and Lyman-alpha Radiation Backgrounds

Understand

We use a new method to model fluctuations of the Lyman-Werner (LW) and Lyman-alpha radiation backgrounds at high redshift.

• At these early epochs the backgrounds are symptoms of a universe newly lit with its first stars.
• LW photons (11.5-13.6 eV) are of particular interest because they dissociate molecular hydrogen, the primary coolant in the first minihalos.
• By using a variation of the halo model, we efficiently generate power spectra for any choice of radiation background.