Papers › The reionising bubble size distribution around galaxies
The reionising bubble size distribution around galaxies
Ting-Yi Lu, Charlotte Mason, Anne Hutter, Andrei Mesinger, Yuxiang Qin, Daniel P. Stark, Ryan Endsley
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Constraining when and how reionisation began is pivotal for understanding when the first galaxies formed. Lyman-alpha (Lyα) emission from galaxies is currently our most promising probe of these early stages. At z>7 the majority of galaxies detected with Lyα are in candidate overdensities. Here we quantify the probability of these galaxies residing in large ionised bubbles. We create (1.6 Gpc)³ reionising intergalactic medium (IGM) simulations, providing sufficient volume to robustly measure bubble size distributions around UV-bright galaxies and rare overdensities. We find M_(UV) ≲-16 galaxies and overdensities are ≳10-1000x more likely to trace ionised bubbles compared to randomly selected positions. The brightest galaxies and strongest overdensities have bubble size distributions with highest characteristic size and least scatter. We compare two models: gradual reionisation driven by numerous UV-faint galaxies versus more rapid reionisation by rarer brighter galaxies, producing larger bubbles at fixed neutral fraction. We demonstrate that recently observed z~7 overdensities are highly likely to trace large ionised bubbles, corroborated by their high Lyα detection rates. However, the z~8.7 association of Lyα emitters in EGS and GN-z11, with Lyα at z=10.6, are unlikely to trace large bubbles in our fiducial model -- 11% and 7% probability of >1 proper Mpc bubbles, respectively. Lyα detections at such high redshifts could be explained by: a less neutral IGM than previously expected; larger ionised regions at fixed neutral fraction; or if intrinsic Lyα flux is unusually strong in these galaxies. We discuss how to test these scenarios with JWST and the prospects for using upcoming wide-area surveys to distinguish between reionisation models.
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