Abstract
Around 400 million years after the big bang, ultraviolet emission (Lyman
Continuum, LyC) from star-forming galaxies drove the reionization of the
Universe. How this radiation escapes the cold neutral gas (HI) of galaxies with
sufficiently little absorption to reionize the intergalactic medium is poorly
understood. HI has never been mapped in confirmed LyC-emitters, leaving major
uncertainties on how LyC photons escape galaxies and ionize the intergalactic
medium. We imaged the 21cm HI emission of nearby reionization-era analog galaxy
Haro 11 to identify how ionizing radiation escapes the neutral interstellar
medium. We find that merger-driven interactions have tidally displaced up to
82% of the neutral gas from the ultraviolet emission production sites in the
galaxy, allowing the escape of ionizing radiation to the intergalactic medium.
Increased galaxy interactions in the early Universe predicted by cosmological
models could contribute significantly to the reionization of the Universe.
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