The Reionization of Carbon

Understand

Observations suggest that CII was more abundant than CIV in the intergalactic medium towards the end of the hydrogen reionization epoch.

• This transition provides a unique opportunity to study the enrichment history of intergalactic gas and the growth of the ionizing background (UVB) at early times.
• We study how carbon absorption evolves from z=10-5 using a cosmological hydrodynamic simulation that includes a self-consistent multifrequency UVB as well as a well-constrained model for galactic outflows to disperse metals.
• Our predicted UVB is within 2-4 times that of Haardt & Madau (2012), which is fair agreement given the uncertainties.