Saleem Zaroubi receives VICI grant

The End of Darkness (how the Universe reionized its gas)

In the last few decades astronomers have been making great strides in the exploration and understanding of our Universe. Despite all the progress we have made, the Universe's history during its first billion years, one of the holy grails of modern astronomy, has remained unexplored. During this era, the first stars and galaxies have formed, shaping everything that we see around us today. To explore this illusive era both observationally and theoretically, new and powerful telescopes are rapidly coming online world-wide.

Among the most exiting and sophisticated such telescopes is the new Dutch-lead LOFAR radio telescope -- currently being rolled out in the Netherlands and over Europe. One of LOFAR's main goals is the detection of hydrogen gas in the early Universe and explorations of how radiation emitted by the first stars, galaxies, and quasars have transformed it from neural to ionized (split it to free electrons and protons).

Prof. Saleem Zaroubi, as one of the Principal Investigators of a key-science project with LOFAR that aims to be the first to detect this hydrogen gas in the early Universe, has received a prestigious VICI grant from the Dutch Science Foundation (NWO). With the help of the VICI grant, Prof. Zaroubi will theoretically further explore the many different scenarios of how physical processes might have unfolded during the this period of the Universe and ultimately compare these to observations done with LOFAR over the coming years. This research will open a new window on the infant Universe