Ionizing Photon Sources within the Local Group

We review the possible sources of ionizing photons within the Local Group. Throughout most of the LG volume, the cosmic background radiation will dominate, but locally (e.g., within d ∼ 100 kpc of the Galactic disk) stellar ionizing photons escaping from galaxies may dominate. The magnitude of the cosmic ionizing background should be determined in the very near future by observations of Hα emission from the outer neutral hydrogen disks of late-type spirals. The detection of the Magellanic Stream in Hα suggests that a few percent of the ionizing photons produced in the Galaxy escape the disk. Neither a warm Local Group corona nor decay photons from a neutrino halo can explain the Stream emission.