A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): JWST Supports Earlier Reionization around [OIII] Emitters

Xiangyu Jin; Jinyi Yang; Xiaohui Fan; Feige Wang; Koki Kakiichi; Romain A. Meyer; George D. Becker; Siwei Zou; Eduardo Bañados; Jaclyn B. Champagne; Valentina D'Odorico; Minghao Yue; Sarah E. I. Bosman; Zheng Cai; Anna-Christina Eilers; Joseph F. Hennawi; Hyunsung D. Jun; Mingyu Li; Zihao Li; Weizhe Liu; Maria Pudoka; Sindhu Satyavolu; Fengwu Sun; Wei Leong Tee; Yunjing Wu

arXiv · 2410.01318

A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): JWST Supports Earlier Reionization around [OIII] Emitters

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Abstract

Understanding when and how reionization happened is crucial for studying the early structure formation and the properties of first galaxies in the Universe. At $z>5.5$, the observed IGM optical depth shows a significant scatter, indicating an inhomogeneous reionization process. However, the nature of the inhomogeneous reionization remains debated. ASPIRE is a JWST Cycle 1 program that has spectroscopically identified $>400$ [OIII] emitters in 25 quasar fields at $z>6.5$. Combined with deep ground-based optical spectroscopy of ASPIRE quasars, ASPIRE program provides the current largest sample for IGM-galaxy connection studies during cosmic reionization. We present the first results of IGM effective optical depth measurements around [OIII] emitters using 14 ASPIRE quasar fields. We find the IGM transmission is tightly related with reionization-era galaxies to the extent that significant excess of Ly$\alpha$ transmission exists around [OIII] emitters. We measure the stacked IGM effective optical depth of IGM patches associated with [OIII] emitters and find they reach the same IGM effective optical depth at least dz~0.1 ahead of those IGM patches where no [OIII] emitters are detected, supporting earlier reionization around [OIII] emitters. Our results indicate an enhancement in IGM Ly$\alpha$ transmission around [OIII] emitters at scales beyond 25 $h^{-1}$ cMpc, consistent with the predicted topology of reionization from fluctuating UV background (UVB) models.

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Xiangyu Jin, Jinyi Yang, Xiaohui Fan, Feige Wang, Koki Kakiichi, Romain A. Meyer, George D. Becker, Siwei Zou, Eduardo Bañados, Jaclyn B. Champagne, Valentina D'Odorico, Minghao Yue, Sarah E. I. Bosman, Zheng Cai, Anna-Christina Eilers, Joseph F. Hennawi, Hyunsung D. Jun, Mingyu Li, Zihao Li, Weizhe Liu, Maria Pudoka, Sindhu Satyavolu, Fengwu Sun, Wei Leong Tee, Yunjing Wu. 2024-10-02. A SPectroscopic survey of biased halos In the Reionization Era (ASPIRE): JWST Supports Earlier Reionization around [OIII] Emitters. https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.01318

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