Astr 328 April 16, 2003: Evolution of the Lyman alpha forest  

Evolution of absorbers with z

Gas disappears as z approaches zero

Estimates of mass density of HI

what are the absorbers, then?

How can we have neutral gas clouds with ionizing radiation?

Size of Lyman alpha clouds

Bigger than a breadbox ........

Why was HST a good idea?

UV spectra allow us to study absorbers at low z

Dont find galaxies associated with all the low column-density clouds.......

Possible models for clouds

Use of hydro simulations to help

Ze "cosmic web"

Picture of simulation at z=3

And at z=1

Good match to observations so far

The nature of high-redshift Lyman break galaxies

Use of a z=0.37 cluster as a telescope

Chemistry of high-z galaxy

Timescale of enrichment by different SNe

What is happening here?

An early stage of formation of a bulge or elliptical