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A. J. Bunker (Berkeley), F. R. Marleau (IoA Cambridge), J. R. Graham (Berkeley)
We describe an ongoing experiment to search for the metagalactic Lyman-continuum background at z~3. We are obtaining one of the deepest optical spectra ever, using Keck/LRIS to search for the fluorescent Ly-\alpha emission from the population of clouds whose absorption produces the higher column density component of the Ly-\alpha forest in quasar spectra (Lyman limit systems).
Our preliminary study (Bunker, Marleau & Graham 1998,
astro-ph/808111) placed a 3\sigma upper bound on the mean
intensity of the ionizing background at the Lyman limit of
J\nu0 < 2\times
10-21~erg~s-1~cm-2~Hz-1~sr-1 for
2.7 We will describe how the results of this study can be used
to constrain the quasar luminosity function and the
contribution of high-redshift star forming galaxies to the
ambient ionizing background. We also show that it is
unlikely that decaying relic neutrinos, if comprising the
bulk of the dark matter, are responsible for the
meta-galactic radiation field.
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bunker@bigz.Berkeley.EDU