Cosmological Hydrogen Reionization with Three Dimensional Radiative Transfer

Abstract

We present new calculations of the inhomogeneous process of cosmological reionization by carefully following the radiative transfer in pre-computed hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation. These new computations represent an important step on the way towards fully self-consistent and adaptive calculations which will eventually cover the enormous range of scales from the sizes of individual mini-halos to the mean free path of ionizing photons in the post-overlap Universe. The goal of such simulations is to include enough realistic physics to accurately model the formation of early structures and the end of the `dark ages'. Our new calculations demonstrate that the process by which the ionized regions percolate the Universe is complex, and that the idea of voids being ionized before overdense regions is perhaps too simplistic. It seems that observational information pertaining to the reionization epoch may now be in our grasp, through the detection of Gunn-Peterson troughs at z~6. If so, then the comparison of information from many lines of sight with simulations such as ours may allow us to disentangle details of the ionization history and trace the early formation of structure.

21 pages, 5 figures, uses AASTeX, accepted to the Astrophysical Journal, extra movie available at http://cosmos.ucsd.edu/~razoumov/fig/movie_sai.mpg

References in corpus (6)

• A Survey of z>5.8 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey I: Discovery of Three New Quasars and the Spatial Density of Luminous Quasars at z~6
• Evidence for Reionization at z ~ 6: Detection of a Gunn-Peterson Trough in a z=6.28 Quasar
• Multi--dimensional Cosmological Radiative Transfer with a Variable Eddington Tensor Formalism
• On the Threshold of the Reionization Epoch
• Adaptive Ray Tracing for Radiative Transfer around Point Sources
• Simulating Reionization in Numerical Cosmology

Cited by in corpus (79)

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• New Constraints on Cosmic Reionization from the 2012 Hubble Ultra Deep Field Campaign
• Efficient Simulations of Early Structure Formation and Reionization
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• Simulating Cosmic Reionization at Large Scales I: the Geometry of Reionization
• Escape fraction of ionizing photons during reionization: effects due to supernova feedback and runaway OB stars
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• Radiative transfer simulations of cosmic reionization I: methodology and initial results
• The Reionization History at High Redshifts I: Physical Models and New Constraints from CMB Polarization
• The Expected Redshift Distribution of Gamma-Ray Bursts
• Early Reionization by the First Galaxies
• C^2-Ray: A new method for photon-conserving transport of ionizing radiation
• Cosmological Radiative Transfer Codes Comparison Project I: The Static Density Field Tests
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• The Thermal Memory of Reionization History
• Comparison Of Reionization Models: Radiative Transfer Simulations And Approximate, Semi-Numeric Models
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• Cosmic Reionisation by Stellar Sources: Population III Stars
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• Fast Large Volume Simulations of the 21 cm Signal from the Reionization and pre-Reionization Epochs
• Cosmic microwave background constraints on the duration and timing of reionization from the South Pole Telescope
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• Formation of Dwarf Galaxies during the Cosmic Reionization
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• A Study of the Reionization History of Intergalactic Helium with FUSE and VLT
• Ionizing radiation fluctuations and large-scale structure in the Lyman-alpha forest
• Reionization simulations powered by GPUs I: the structure of the Ultraviolet radiation field
• Cosmic Reionization and the 21-cm signal: Comparison between an analytical model and a simulation
• Observing the Reionization Epoch Through 21 Centimeter Radiation
• The Impact of Small-Scale Structure on Cosmological Ionization Fronts and Reionization
• Cosmological parameters sigma_8, the baryon density, and the UV background intensity from a calibrated measurement of H I Lyman-alpha absorption at z = 1.9
• On the use of semi-numerical simulations in predicting the 21-cm signal from the epoch of reionization
• The Physical Properties and Detectability of Reionization-Epoch Galaxies
• The Epoch of Reionization in Models with Reduced Small Scale Power
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• Effective Screening due to Minihalos During the Epoch of Reionization
• ART^2 : Coupling Lyman-alpha Line and Multi-wavelength Continuum Radiative Transfer
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• Smoothed Particle Hydrodynamics coupled with Radiation Transfer
• Probing the Dark Ages with Metal Absorption Lines
• Reionisation scenarios and the temperature of the IGM
• Direct Numerical Simulation of Reionization II: Recombinations, Clumping Factors, and the Photon Budget for Reionization
• Hydrogen Reionization in the Illustris universe
• Simulating the 21-cm signal from reionisation including non-linear ionisations and inhomogeneous recombinations
• Numerical Simulations of High Redshift Star Formation in Dwarf Galaxies
• The effect of peculiar velocities on the epoch of reionization (EoR) 21-cm signal
• Fully Threaded Transport Engine: New Method for Multi-Scale Radiative Transfer
• A Statistical Analysis of Intergalactic Medium Transmission Approaching Reionization
• Epoch of Reionisation 21cm Forecasting From MCMC-Constrained Semi-Numerical Models
• How Neutral is the Intergalactic Medium at z ~ 6?
• Fully-Coupled Simulation of Cosmic Reionization. I: Numerical Methods and Tests
• LOFAR insights into the epoch of reionization from the cross power spectrum of 21cm emission and galaxies
• The Earliest Epoch of Reionisation in the Standard $\Lambda$CDM Model
• A Fast, Accurate and Robust Algorithm For Transferring Radiation in Three-Dimensional Space
• How Density Environment Changes the Influence of the Dark Matter-Baryon Streaming Velocity on the Cosmological Structure Formation
• Self-Consistent Solution of Cosmological Radiation-Hydrodynamics and Chemical Ionization
• The effect of inhomogeneous reionisation on the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest power spectrum at redshift $z>4$: implications for thermal parameter recovery
• Radiation-induced large-scale structure during the reionization epoch: the autocorrelation function
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• Possible flakes of molecular hydrogen in the early Universe
• A study of simulated histories of reionization with merger trees of HII regions
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• A WENO Algorithm for the Radiative Transfer and Ionized Sphere at Reionization
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• A WENO Algorithm of the Temperature and Ionization Profiles around a Point Source
• A WENO Algorithm for the Growth of Ionized Regions at the Reionization Epoch
• Lyman Break Galaxies and Reionization of the Universe
• Is the cosmic UV background fluctuating at redshift z ~ 6 ?
• 21 cm Signals from Early Ionizing Sources
• Semi-Numerical Simulation of Reionization with Semi-Analytical Modeling of Galaxy Formation
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• Radiative transfer problem in dusty galaxies: ray-tracing approach