Reionization, SLOAN, and WMAP: is the Picture Consistent?

Abstract

I show that advanced simulations of cosmological reionization are able to fit the observed data on the mean transmitted flux in the hydrogen Lyman-alpha line at z~6. At the same time, posteriori models can be constructed that also produce a large value (20%) for the Thompson scattering optical depth, consistent with the WMAP measurements. Thus, it appears that a consistent picture emerges in which early reionization (as suggested by WMAP) is complete by z~6 in accord with the SLOAN data.