A Short Introduction to Reionization Physics

Abstract

The epoch of reionization probes the state of our universe when the very first stars formed and ionized the hydrogen atoms in the surrounding medium. Since the epoch has not yet been probed observationally, it is often called the "final frontier" of observational cosmology. This final frontier is attracting a lot of attention because of the availability of a large number of telescopes in a wide variety of wavebands. This review article summarizes some of the concepts required to understand the interesting physics of reionization and how to analyze the high-redshift universe using related observations.