Revisiting the Lyman continuum escape crisis: predictions for z > 6 from local galaxies
The intrinsic escape fraction of ionizing Lyman continuum photons (f{sub esc}) is crucial to understanding whether galaxies are capable of reionizing the neutral hydrogen in the early universe at z > 6. Unfortunately, it is not possible to access f{sub esc} at z > 4 with direct observations, and the handful of measurements from low-redshift galaxies consistently find f{sub esc} < 10%, while at least f{sub esc} ∼ 10% is necessary for galaxies to dominate reionization. Here, we present the first empirical prediction of f{sub esc} at z > 6 by combining the (sparsely populated) relation between [O III]/[O II] and f{sub esc} with the redshift evolution of [O III]/[O II] as predicted from local high-z analogs selected by their Hα equivalent width. We find f{sub esc}=5.7{sub −3.3}{sup +8.3}% at z = 6 and f{sub esc}=10.4{sub −6.3}{sup +15.5}% at z = 9 for galaxies with log(M/M{sub ⊙})∼9.0 (errors given as 1σ). However, there is a negative correlation with stellar mass and we find up to 50% larger f{sub esc} per 0.5 dex decrease in stellar mass. The population-averaged escape fraction increases according to f{sub esc}=f{sub esc,0}((1+z)/3){sup α}, with f {sub esc,0} = (2.3 ± 0.05)% and α = 1.17 ± 0.02 at z > 2 for log(M/M{sub ⊙})∼9.0. With our empirical prediction of f{sub esc} (thus fixing an important, previously unknown variable) and further reasonable assumptions on clumping factor and the production efficiency of Lyman continuum photons, we conclude that the average population of galaxies is just capable of reionizing the universe by z ∼ 6.