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Early stars and galaxies emitted sufficient ionizing photons to ionize all of the gas between galaxies. This epoch of reionization established the conditions from which modern-day galaxies emerged, but very little has been observed about the sources of ionizing photons or how the Universe became reionized. Here, I present recent results that tie together both local galaxies and galaxies within the epoch of reionization to reveal new constraints on the sources of reionization. I will focus on recent direct observations of galaxies squarely within this time period with the James Webb Space Telescope. However, JWST observations cannot directly constrain the sources of ionizing photons. A large sample of local galaxies known to emit ionizing photons, called the Low-Redshift Lyman Continuum Survey, provides the template to constrain how ionizing photons escape distant galaxies. I will present some recent results from this survey that are directly applicable to the high-redshift universe and look forward to upcoming JWST observations that will constrain the sources of cosmic reionization. |
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