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Post Tenebras Lux: How the First Luminous Sources Reionised the Universe

Objective

How the diffuse intergalactic hydrogen gas in the Universe was reionised in less than 1 billion years after the Big Bang is a fundamental open problem in astrophysics. The common hypothesis is that the first luminous sources produced large amounts of ionising photons, thus rapidly reionising their surroundings. However, observational evidence for this hypothesis has been elusive for more than two decades. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is now revolutionising our view of the early Universe, finally providing us with the means to study the emergence of the first galaxies ~13 billion years ago in unprecedented detail. JWST is finding new ultra-luminous z>10 galaxies and an abundant population of Active Galactic Nuclei challenging the consensus on reionisation. This project will leverage the JWST revolution to solve the mystery of the sources of Reionisation.

The main goals of PostTenebrasLux are (1) Find the first ionised bubbles at z>9 and unveil their link to early ultraluminous galaxies (2) Provide the 3D maps of reionisation in deep extragalactic fields at 55 (4) Establish new probes of the reionisation timeline with JWST at 5
This project uses large public and proprietary JWST/VLT datasets to make the first observational 3D view of Reionisation in order to reveal which sources reionised the Universe, when and how. Providing a crucially missing observational counterpart to large suites of simulations will link astrophysical processes over physical scales across 12 orders of magnitude, shedding new light on the physics of the first stars, galaxies, and intergalactic medium gas in the first billion years.

Through past achievements in reionisation, early black holes and galaxies, and access to proprietary PI-led JWST data, the PI is uniquely positioned to transform the way we study reionisation by directly observing it in 3D and finding its elusive sources.

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

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HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

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(opens in new window) ERC-2026-STG

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Host institution

UNIVERSITE DE GENEVE
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 2 272 112,00
Address
RUE DU GENERAL DUFOUR 24
1211 Geneve
Switzerland

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Region
Schweiz/Suisse/Svizzera Région lémanique Genève
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 2 272 112,00

Beneficiaries (1)