The burgeoning rise of the 21-cm forest I: constraints on the optical depth of the intergalactic medium at 5.38 < z < 5.84

arXiv:2607.20371 · astro-ph.CO, astro-ph.GA · Submitted 2026-07-22 · Read on arXiv

Chanasorn Kongprachaya, Gianni Bernardi, Emilio Ceccotti, Andrei Mesinger, Benedetta Ciardi, Oleg M. Smirnov

astro-ph.CO, astro-ph.GA

Submitted: 2026-07-22

Comments: 15 pages, 24 figures, 11 tables. Submitted to Astronomy & Astrophysics (A&A)

License: http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/

Terminology

• Calibration — 11× in this paper · explained in 7 episodes
• Epoch of Reionization — 4× in this paper
• 21-cm Power Spectrum — 2× in this paper · explained in 1 episode
• Adam — 2× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Decoupling — 1× in this paper · explained in 2 episodes
• Robustness — 1× in this paper · explained in 5 episodes
• Square Kilometre Array Observatory — 1× in this paper

Sources

• Multi-Scale CLEAN deconvolution of radio synthesis images
• Aether-SHELLQs: JWST integral-field spectroscopy of candidate obscured quasars at z ~ 6
• Euclid: Discovery of 31 new quasars at 6.6 < z < 7.8

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