Probing the End of the Dark Ages

In currently popular cosmological scenarios – all variants of the cold dark matter (CDM) cosmogony – some time beyond a redshift of 15, stars within the numerous small halos that condense with virial temperatures ∼ 10 K created the first heavy elements; these protogalactic systems, together perhaps with an early population of mini-quasars, generated the ultraviolet radiation and mechanical energy that reheated and reionized the cosmos. The history of the Universe during and soon after these crucial formative stages is recorded in the thermal, ionization, and chemical state of the all-pervading intergalactic medium (IGM), which contains most of the ordinary baryonic material left over from the big bang. Throughout the epoch of structure formation, the IGM becomes clumpy under the influence of gravity, and acts as a source for the gas that gets accreted, cools, and forms stars within subgalactic fragments, and as a sink for the metal enriched material, energy, and radiation which they eject.