Secondary ionization and heating by fast electrons

Abstract

We examine the fate of fast electrons (with energies E>10 eV) in a thermal gas of primordial composition. To follow their interactions with the background gas, we construct a Monte Carlo model that includes: (1) electron-electron scattering (which transforms the electron kinetic energy into heat), (2) collisional ionization of hydrogen and helium (which produces secondary electrons that themselves scatter through the medium), and (3) collisional excitation (which produces secondary photons, whose fates we also follow approximately). For the last process, we explicitly include all transitions to upper levels n<=4, together with a well-motivated extrapolation to higher levels. In all cases, we use recent calculated cross-sections at E<1 keV and the Bethe approximation to extrapolate to higher energies. We compute the fractions of energy deposited as heat, ionization (tracking HI and the helium species separately), and excitation (tracking HI Lyman-alpha separately) under a broad range of conditions appropriate to the intergalactic medium. The energy deposition fractions depend on both the background ionized fraction and the electron energy but are nearly independent of the background density. We find good agreement with some, but not all, previous calculations at high energies. Electronic tables of our results are available on request.

10 pages, 6 figures, submitted to MNRAS

References in corpus (7)

• Cosmology at Low Frequencies: The 21 cm Transition and the High-Redshift Universe
• The Global 21 Centimeter Background from High Redshifts
• 21 cm fluctuations from inhomogeneous X-ray heating before reionization
• Impact of dark matter decays and annihilations on reionization
• The Effects of Dark Matter Decay and Annihilation on the High-Redshift 21 cm Background
• Relative Role of Stars and Quasars in Cosmic Reionization
• The Energy Cascade from Warm Dark Matter Decays

Cited by in corpus (97)

• 21cmFAST: A Fast, Semi-Numerical Simulation of the High-Redshift 21-cm Signal
• Indirect Dark Matter Signatures in the Cosmic Dark Ages I. Generalizing the Bound on s-wave Dark Matter Annihilation from Planck
• Radiation Backgrounds at Cosmic Dawn: X-Rays from Compact Binaries
• Quantitative Constraints on the Reionization History from the IGM Damping Wing Signature in Two Quasars at z > 7
• Indirect Dark Matter Signatures in the Cosmic Dark Ages II. Ionization, Heating and Photon Production from Arbitrary Energy Injections
• Signatures of X-rays in the early Universe
• The observable signature of late heating of the Universe during cosmic reionization
• The signature of the first stars in atomic hydrogen at redshift 20
• The X-ray spectra of the first galaxies: 21cm signatures
• The origin of fast molecular outflows in quasars: molecule formation in AGN-driven galactic winds
• The Global 21-cm Signal in the Context of the High-z Galaxy Luminosity Function
• The First Galaxies: Assembly with Black Hole Feedback
• The Rise of the First Stars: Supersonic Streaming, Radiative Feedback, and 21-cm Cosmology
• The Evolution of 21-cm Structure (EOS): public, large-scale simulations of Cosmic Dawn and Reionization
• Constraining primordial black holes as dark matter using the global 21-cm signal with X-ray heating and excess radio background
• Systematic Uncertainties In Constraining Dark Matter Annihilation From The Cosmic Microwave Background
• Radiative Feedback from high mass X-ray binaries on the formation of the first galaxies and early reionization
• How realistic UV spectra and X-rays suppress the abundance of direct collapse black holes
• Decoding the X-ray Properties of Pre-Reionization Era Sources
• Non-equilibrium chemistry and cooling in the diffuse interstellar medium - I. Optically thin regime
• PAPER-64 Constraints On Reionization II: The Temperature Of The z=8.4 Intergalactic Medium
• A tale of two sites -- I: Inferring the properties of minihalo-hosted galaxies from current observations
• DarkHistory: A code package for calculating modified cosmic ionization and thermal histories with dark matter and other exotic energy injections
• Heating of the intergalactic medium by the cosmic microwave background during cosmic dawn
• Unveiling the nature of dark matter with high redshift 21 cm line experiments
• Heating of the Intergalactic Medium by Hydrogen Reionization
• Strong constraints on decay and annihilation of dark matter from heating of gas-rich dwarf galaxies
• Robust Velocity-induced Acoustic Oscillations at Cosmic Dawn
• Constraining the redshifted 21-cm signal with the unresolved soft X-ray background
• Interpreting the Global 21-cm Signal from High Redshifts. II. Parameter Estimation for Models of Galaxy Formation
• The effects of metallicity, UV radiation and non-equilibrium chemistry in high-resolution simulations of galaxies
• Unique Signatures of Population III Stars in the Global 21-cm Signal
• Limits on Population III star formation in minihaloes implied by Planck
• Multi-frequency, thermally coupled radiative transfer with TRAPHIC: Method and tests
• Constraining High Redshift X-ray Sources with Next Generation 21 cm Power Spectrum Measurements
• Time-dependent behaviour of quasar proximity zones at $z\sim 6$
• A constraint on light primordial black holes from the interstellar medium temperature
• A Space-Based Observational Strategy for Characterizing the First Stars and Galaxies Using the Redshifted 21-cm Global Spectrum
• Gas Heating from Spinning and Non-Spinning Evaporating Primordial Black Holes
• The Radio Scream from Black Holes at Cosmic Dawn: A Semi-Analytic Model for the Impact of Radio Loud Black-Holes on the 21 cm Global Signal
• First star formation with dark matter annihilation
• Quasar Ionization Front Lyα Emission in an Inhomogeneous Intergalactic Medium
• An Effective Model for the Cosmic-Dawn 21-cm Signal
• Probing Cosmic Reionization and Molecular Gas Growth with TIME
• The impact of spin temperature fluctuations on the 21-cm moments
• A halo model approach for the 21-cm power spectrum at cosmic dawn
• Helium Reionization Simulations. II. Signatures of Quasar Activity on the IGM
• X-ray Ionization of Heavy Elements Applied to Protoplanetary Disks
• Optimized Multi-Frequency Spectra for Applications in Radiative Feedback and Cosmological Reionization
• CMB anisotropy and BBN constraints on pre-recombination decay of dark matter to visible particles
• Minimum size of 21-cm simulations
• Preheating of the Universe by cosmic rays from primordial supernovae at the beginning of cosmic reionization
• Interstellar Gas Heating by Primordial Black Holes
• Revisiting CMB constraints on dark matter annihilation
• The 21-cm Line as a Probe of Reionization
• Radiative transfer of energetic photons: X-rays and helium ionization in C2-Ray
• The First Stars: formation under X-ray feedback
• Cosmic radiation backgrounds from primordial black holes
• Morphology of 21cm brightness temperature during the Epoch of Reioinization using Contour Minkowski Tensor
• A closer look at CMB constraints on WIMP dark matter
• A self-consistent semi-analytic model for Population III star formation in minihalos
• The Concerted Impact of Galaxies and QSOs on the Ionization and Thermal State of the Intergalactic Medium
• 21cm signal sensitivity to dark matter decay
• The Distribution and Evolution of Quasar Proximity Zone Sizes
• Structure Formation and the Global 21-cm Signal in the Presence of Coulomb-like Dark Matter-Baryon Interactions
• Helium Reionization Simulations. I. Modeling Quasars as Radiation Sources
• The Dark Ages of the Universe and Hydrogen Reionization
• Heating and Ionization of the Primordial Intergalactic Medium by High Mass X-ray Binaries
• Cosmic microwave background constraints on light dark matter candidates
• The detectability of strong 21 centimetre forest absorbers from the diffuse intergalactic medium in late reionisation models
• Impacts of Jets and Winds From Primordial Black Holes
• Microquasars as heating sources of the intergalactic medium during reionisation of the Universe
• Variations in fundamental constants at the cosmic dawn
• The Response of Metal Rich Gas to X-Ray Irradiation from a Massive Black Hole at High Redshift: Proof of Concept
• An efficient Monte Carlo model for the slowing down of photoelectrons. Application to H-$\alpha$ in exoplanet atmospheres
• Edges and Endpoints in 21-cm Observations from Resonant Photon Production
• The First Billion Years in Seconds: An Effective Model for the 21-cm Signal with Population III Stars
• Non-equilibrium temperature evolution of ionization fronts during the Epoch of Reionization
• Dark Matter Annihilation in the Circumgalactic Medium at High Redshifts
• Perturbed recombination from inhomogeneous photon injection and application to accreting primordial black holes
• Probing quasar lifetimes with proximate $21$-centimetre absorption in the diffuse intergalactic medium at redshifts $z\ge 6$
• Impact of ultraluminous X-ray sources on photoabsorption in the first galaxies
• Growth and anisotropy of ionization fronts near high redshift quasars in the MassiveBlack simulation
• Coronal Properties of Low-mass Population III Stars and the Radiative Feedback in the Early Universe
• The Effects of Dark Matter Annihilation on Cosmic Reionization
• Resistive Heating Induced by Streaming Cosmic Rays Around a Galaxy in the Early Universe
• Radio recombination lines from obscured quasars with the SKA
• Growth problems of stellar black holes in early galaxies
• Prospects of a statistical detection of the 21-cm forest and its potential to constrain the thermal state of the neutral IGM during reionization
• Global 21cm Absorption Signal from Superconducting Cosmic Strings
• Energy dissipation of energetic electrons in the inhomogeneous intergalactic medium during the epoch of reionization
• A universal 21 cm signature of growing massive black holes in the early Universe
• Unified Gas Heating Constraints on Extended Dark Matter Compact Objects
• Search for Dark Matter Annihilation and Decay with H$\alpha$ Line Emission
• The 21-cm signal from the Cosmic Dawn: metallicity dependence of high mass X-ray binaries
• Spectral distortions in the decaying QCD dark matter scenario
• Dark Matter Energy Deposition and Production from the Table-Top to the Cosmos