Primordial neutral atomic gas, mostly composed of hydrogen, is the raw material for star formation in galaxies. However, there are few direct constraints on the amount of neutral atomic hydrogen (H i) in galaxies at early cosmic times. We analyzed James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) near-infrared spectroscopy of distant galaxies, at redshifts ≳8.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGalactic outflows are believed to play a critical role in the evolution of galaxies by regulating their mass build-up and star formation. Theoretical models assume bipolar shapes for the outflows that extend well into the circumgalactic medium (CGM), up to tens of kiloparsecs (kpc) perpendicular to the galaxies. They have been directly observed in the local Universe in several individual galaxies, for example, around the Milky Way and M82 (refs.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe physical conditions of the circumgalactic medium are investigated by means of intervening absorption-line systems in the spectrum of background quasi-stellar objects (QSOs) out to the epoch of cosmic reionization. A correlation between the ionization state of the absorbing gas and the nature of the nearby galaxies has been suggested by the sources detected in either Lyα or [C II] 158 μm near to, respectively, highly ionized and neutral absorbers. This is also probably linked to the global changes in the incidence of absorption systems of different types and the process of cosmic reionization.
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