Modeling the distribution of ionizing radiation from the early universe to the present epoch

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

The goal of this program is to model the ultraviolet light emitted during the early universe when the first stars, galaxies, and black holes were being formed. This is one of the last epochs of the universe to remain unexplored. Broader impacts of the program include training of graduate students, and mentoring of groups of freshman undergraduates from communities that are underrepresented in the physical sciences that are participating in the Pre-MAP program at the University of Washington. Furthermore, this award supports three paid undergraduate summer internships, which will be filled either by the pre-MAP students or astronomy majors at the University of Washington. This research will improve modeling of fluctuating ionizing backgrounds and the Ly-alpha forest around the epoch of reionization to better understand the process and sources of reionization. In addition, the program plans to provide a flexible, publicly available ionizing background computer code.