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Updated: Apr 4, 2026

Investigation of Early Plasma Evolution Induced by Ultrashort Laser Pulses
Published on: July 2, 2012
Ultraviolet luminosity density of the universe during the epoch of reionization
Ketron Mitchell-Wynne1, Asantha Cooray1, Yan Gong2,1
1Department of Physics &Astronomy, University of California, Irvine, California 92697, USA.
Abstract:
The spatial fluctuations of the extragalactic background light trace the total emission from all stars and galaxies in the Universe. A multiwavelength study can be used to measure the integrated emission from first galaxies during reionization when the Universe was about 500 million years old. Here we report arcmin-scale spatial fluctuations in one of the deepest sky surveys with the Hubble Space Telescope in five wavebands between 0.6 and 1.6 μm. We model-fit the angular power spectra of intensity fluctuation measurements to find the ultraviolet luminosity density of galaxies at redshifts greater than 8 to be log ρ(UV) = 27.4(+0.2)(-1.2) ergs(-1) Hz(-1) Mpc(-3) (1σ). This level of integrated light emission allows for a significant surface density of fainter primeval galaxies that are below the point-source detection level in current surveys.
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