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The He II Opacity of the Lyman-alpha Forest and the Intergalactic Medium

Wei Zheng, Arthur F. Davidsen, Gerard A. Kriss

astro-pharXiv:astro-ph/9711143

Abstract

Based on the empirical formulas governing the distribution of Ly-a forest absorption, we use a Monte-Carlo technique to calculate the average HeII optical depth produced by these forest lines. A substantial contribution to HeII absorption arises from extremely tenuous regions of intergalactic gas that are beyond the observational limits for HI absorption.

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