A. Marín Franch, Alberto Manrique, K. Chanchaiworawit, R. Calvi, Jesús Gallego, J. M. Mas-Hesse, J. M. Rodríguez Espinosa, A. Herrero, Eduard Salvador-Solé, Rafael Guzman, Unidad de Excelencia Científica María de Maeztu Centro de Astrobiología del Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial y CSIC, MDM-2017-0737, Rodríguez Espinosa, J. M. [0000-0002-0674-1470], Agencia Estatal de Investigación (AEI), Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad (MINECO), JMRE, and Unidad de Excelencia María de Maeztu Centro de Astrobiología del Instituto Nacional de Técnica Aeroespacial y CSIC
We show herein that a proto-cluster of Ly α emitting galaxies, spectroscopically confirmed at redshift 6.5, produces a remarkable number of ionizing continuum photons. We start from the Ly α fluxes measured in the spectra of the sources detected spectroscopically. From these fluxes, we derive the ionizing emissivity of continuum photons of the protocluster, which we compare with the ionizing emissivity required to reionize the protocluster volume. We find that the sources in the protocluster are capable of ionizing a large bubble, indeed larger than the volume occupied by the protocluster. For various calculations, we have used the model AMIGA, in particular to derive the emissivity of the Lyman continuum photons required to maintain the observed volume ionized. Besides, we have assumed the ionizing photons escape fraction given by AMIGA at this redshift., With funding from the Spanish government through the "María de Maeztu Unit of Excellence" accreditation (MDM-2017-0737)