{"paper":{"title":"Was the Universe Reionized by Massive Population-III Stars?","license":"","headline":"","cross_cats":[],"primary_cat":"astro-ph","authors_text":"Abraham Loeb, Stuart Wyithe","submitted_at":"2003-02-17T06:47:54Z","abstract_excerpt":"The WMAP satellite has measured a large optical depth to electron scattering after cosmological recombination of 0.17+-0.04, implying significant reionization of the primordial gas only ~200 million years after the big bang. However, the most recent overlap of intergalactic HII regions must have occured at z<9 based on the Lyman-alpha forest constraint on the thermal history of the intergalactic medium. Here we argue that a first generation of metal-free stars with a heavy (rather than Salpeter) mass function is therefore required to account for much of the inferred optical depth. This conclus"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"astro-ph/0302297","kind":"arxiv","version":2},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}