Event Details

Unveiling the properties of luminous galaxies in the epoch of re-ionisation

Abstract: Distant luminous Lyman-alpha emitters are excellent targets for detailed observations of galaxies in the epoch of reionisation. The epoch of reionisation is the era when the Universe transitioned from being neutral to ionised, and galaxies can be used to map out the evolution of this process. Spatially resolved observations of these galaxies allow us to simultaneously probe the emission from young stars, partially ionised clouds in the interstellar medium (ISM) and the properties of surrounding hydrogen gas in the circumgalactic medium (CGM). In this talk, I will focus on recent results from spectroscopic follow-up studies of three luminous galaxies observed only ~500 Myr after the Big Bang with ALMA, HST/WFC3 MUSE and X-SHOOTER on the VLT. We find that these galaxies likely reside in early ionised bubbles and are complex systems, consisting of multiple well separated and resolved components where traces of metals and outflows are already present.