HST/COS Observations of Thirteen New He II Quasars

TL;DR

This study presents 13 new He II quasars observed with HST/COS, expanding the sample size to better understand helium reionization at redshifts 2.82 to 3.77, and highlights observational challenges and findings related to IGM opacity and quasar emission.

Contribution

The paper reports the discovery of the largest, most uniformly observed sample of He II quasars over a broad redshift range, with implications for helium reionization studies.

Findings

IGM opacity increases with redshift as expected.

No He II Lyα emission detected in individual or averaged spectra.

Sample includes several brighter quasars than previously known.

Abstract

The full reionization of intergalactic helium was a major event in the history of the IGM, and UV observations of the He II Gunn-Peterson trough allow us to characterize the end of this process at z~3. Due to intervening hydrogen absorption, quasars allowing such study are rare, with only 33 known in the literature, and most of those are very recent discoveries. We expand on our previous discovery work, and present 13 new He II quasars with redshifts 2.82 < z < 3.77, here selected with ~80% efficiency, and including several that are much brighter than the vast majority of those previously known. This is the largest sample of uniformly observed He II quasars covering such a broad redshift range, and they show evidence of IGM opacity increasing with redshift, as expected for the helium reionization epoch. No evidence of He II Ly{\alpha} quasar emission is seen in individual or averaged spectra, posing a problem for standard models of the broad line region. The current rapid advance in the study of He II quasars has been greatly facilitated by the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on HST, and we discuss the instrumental and other subtleties that must be taken into account in IGM He II observations.