Evidence of Gunn-Peterson damping wings in high-z quasar spectra:
  strengthening the case for incomplete reionization
  The spectra of several high-redshift (z>6) quasars have shown evidence for a
Gunn-Peterson (GP) damping wing, indicating a substantial mean neutral hydrogen
fraction (x_HI > 0.03) in the z ~ 6 intergalactic medium (IGM). However,
previous analyses assumed that the IGM was uniformly ionized outside of the
quasar's HII region. Here we relax this assumption and model patchy
reionization scenarios for a range of IGM and quasar parameters. We quantify
the impact of these differences on the inferred x_HI, by fitting the spectra of
three quasars: SDSS J1148+5251 (z=6.419), J1030+0524 (z=6.308), and J1623+3112
(z=6.247). We find that the best-fit values of x_HI in the patchy models agree
well with the uniform case. More importantly, we confirm that the observed
spectra favor the presence of a GP damping wing, with peak likelihoods
decreasing by factors of > few - 10 when the spectra are modeled without a
damping wing. We also find that the Ly alpha absorption spectra, by themselves,
cannot distinguish the damping wing in a relatively neutral IGM from a damping
wing in a highly ionized IGM, caused either by an isolated neutral patch, or by
a damped Ly alpha absorber (DLA). However, neutral patches in a highly ionized
universe (x_HI < 0.01), and DLAs with the large required column densities (N_HI
> few x 10^{20} cm^{-2}) are both rare. As a result, when we include reasonable
prior probabilities for the line of sight (LOS) to intercept either a neutral
patch or a DLA at the required distance of ~ 40-60 comoving Mpc away from the
quasar, we find strong lower limits on the neutral fraction in the IGM, x_HI >
0.1 (at 95% confidence). This strengthens earlier claims that a substantial
global fraction of hydrogen in the z~6 IGM is in neutral form.
