The effect of minihaloes on cosmic reionization

Abstract

One of the most debated issues in the theoretical modeling of cosmic reionization is the impact of small-mass gravitationally-bound structures. We carry out the first numerical investigation of the role of such sterile `minihaloes', which serve as self-shielding screens of ionizing photons. Minihaloes are too small to be properly resolved in current large-scale cosmological simulations, and thus we estimate their effects using a sub-grid model, considering two cases that bracket their effect within this framework. In the `extreme suppression' case in which minihalo formation ceases once a region is partially ionized, their effect on cosmic reionization is modest, reducing the volume-averaged ionization fraction by an overall factor of less than 15%. In the other extreme, in which minihalo formation is never suppressed, they delay complete reionization as much as Delta z~2, in rough agreement with the results from a previous semi-analytical study by the authors. Thus, depending on the details of the minihalo formation process, their effect on the overall progress of reionization can range from modest to significant, but the minihalo photon consumption is by itself insufficient to force an extended reionization epoch.

arXiv comment9 pages, 2 figures, accepted for pubblication in MNRAS

References in corpus (49)

• First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters
• Populating a cluster of galaxies - I. Results at z=0
• The Galaxy Evolution Explorer: A Space Ultraviolet Survey Mission
• GADGET: A code for collisionless and gasdynamical cosmological simulations
• An analytic model for the spatial clustering of dark matter haloes
• In the Beginning: The First Sources of Light and the Reionization of the Universe
• Clustering of Galaxies in a Hierarchical Universe: I. Methods and Results at z=0
• An excursion set model of hierarchical clustering: Ellipsoidal collapse and the moving barrier
• Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) First Year Observations: TE Polarization
• Power Spectra for Cold Dark Matter and its Variants
• 21-cm Tomography of the Intergalactic Medium at High Redshift
• Effect of Reionization on the Structure Formation in the Universe
• A Survey of z>5.7 Quasars in the Sloan Digital Sky Survey IV: Discovery of Seven Additional Quasars
• Probing the Universe with the Lyman-alpha Forest: I. Hydrodynamics of the Low Density IGM
• Destruction of Molecular Hydrogen During Cosmological Reionization
• The Radiative Feedback of the First Cosmological Objects
• The First Cosmic Structures and their Effects
• The Structure and Dynamical Evolution of Dark Matter Halos
• Photoevaporation of Cosmological Minihalos during Reionization
• The Universe Was Reionized Twice
• Probing the Ionization State of the Universe at z>6
• Radio Signatures of HI at High Redshift: Mapping the End of the ``Dark Ages''
• Probing Beyond the Epoch of Hydrogen Reionization with 21 Centimeter Radiation
• Fossil HII Regions: Self-Limiting Star Formation at High Redshift
• X-ray Preionisation Powered by Accretion on the First Black Holes. I: a Model for the WMAP Polarisation Measurement
• Early Reionization by the First Galaxies
• Reionization by Hard Photons: I. X-rays from the First Star Clusters
• Inhomogeneous Reionization Regulated by Radiative and Stellar Feedbacks
• Cosmological Reionization Around the First Stars: Monte Carlo Radiative Transfer
• Was the Universe Reionized by Massive Population-III Stars?
• On the Direct Detectability of the Cosmic Dark Ages: 21-cm Emission from Minihalos
• Minihalo photoevaporation during cosmic reionization: evaporation times and photon consumption rates
• Simulating IGM Reionization
• CRASH: a Radiative Transfer Scheme
• Non-gaussian CMB temperature fluctuations from peculiar velocities of clusters
• Radiative feedback from an early X-ray background
• Experimental Constraints on Self-consistent Reionization Models
• Do We Need Stars to Reionize the Universe at High Redshifts? Early Reionization by Decaying Heavy Sterile Neutrinos
• The First Miniquasar
• Photon Consumption in Minihalos during Cosmological Reionization
• Forming a Primordial Star in a Relic HII Region
• Nonlinear clustering during the cosmic Dark Ages and its effect on the 21-cm background from minihalos
• Observing the Reionization Epoch Through 21 Centimeter Radiation
• The Impact of Small-Scale Structure on Cosmological Ionization Fronts and Reionization
• First Structure Formation: A Simulation of Small Scale Structure at High Redshift
• Effective Screening due to Minihalos During the Epoch of Reionization
• An Analytical Approach to Inhomogeneous Structure Formation
• A Model of Void Formation
• Toward an Improved Analytical Description of Lagrangian Bias

Cited by in corpus (69)

• Cosmology at Low Frequencies: The 21 cm Transition and the High-Redshift Universe
• Cosmological Parameter Estimation Using 21 cm Radiation from the Epoch of Reionization
• Relative velocity of dark matter and baryonic fluids and the formation of the first structures
• The morphology of HII regions during reionization
• The Evolution of the Intergalactic Medium
• The Global 21 Centimeter Background from High Redshifts
• Inferring the astrophysics of reionization and cosmic dawn from galaxy luminosity functions and the 21-cm signal
• 21CMMC: an MCMC analysis tool enabling astrophysical parameter studies of the cosmic 21 cm signal
• Keeping the Universe ionised: Photo-heating and the clumping factor of the high-redshift intergalactic medium
• Pre-reionization Fossils, Ultra-faint Dwarfs and the Missing Galactic Satellite Problem
• Rapid Decline of Lyman-alpha Emission Toward the Reionization Era
• Inhomogeneous recombinations during cosmic reionization
• Self-regulated reionization
• Impact of the Relative Motion between the Dark Matter and Baryons on the First Stars
• Local radiative feedback in the formation of the first protogalaxies
• Suppression and Spatial Variation of Early Galaxies and Minihalos
• Gas Clumping in Self-Consistent Reionisation Models
• The Rise of the First Stars: Supersonic Streaming, Radiative Feedback, and 21-cm Cosmology
• The Global History of Reionisation
• Simulations of Early Baryonic Structure Formation with Stream Velocity: II. The Gas Fraction
• On the rapid demise of Lyman-alpha emitters at z>7 due to the increasing incidence of optically thick absorption systems
• The simulated 21 cm signal during the epoch of reionization : full modeling of the Ly-alpha pumping
• The Influence of Streaming Velocities on the Formation of the First Stars
• Topology and Sizes of HII Regions during Cosmic Reionization
• Analysing the 21cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization with artificial neural networks
• Lyman-alpha radiative transfer during the Epoch of Reionization: contribution to 21-cm signal fluctuations
• A tale of two sites -- I: Inferring the properties of minihalo-hosted galaxies from current observations
• The Kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect from Radiative Transfer Simulations of Patchy Reionization
• Spatially adaptive radiation-hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation during cosmological reionization
• The Extended Starformation History of the First Generation of Stars, and the Reionization of Cosmic Hydrogen
• Reionisation scenarios and the temperature of the IGM
• Lower Metal Enrichment of Virialized Gas in Minihalos
• Supersonic Relative Velocity Effect on the Baryonic Acoustic Oscillation Measurements
• A New Moment Method for Continuum Radiative Transfer in Cosmological Reionization
• The Late Reionization of Filaments
• The Opacity of the Intergalactic Medium During Reionization: Resolving Small-Scale Structure
• Impact of Primordial Ultracompact Minihaloes on the Intergalactic Medium and First Structure Formation
• A tale of two sites -- II: Inferring the properties of minihalo-hosted galaxies with upcoming 21-cm interferometers
• The Signature of Patchy Reionization in the Polarization Anisotropy of the CMB
• Redshifted 21 Centimeter Emission from Minihalos Before Reionization
• The observable 21cm signal from reionization may be perturbative
• The galaxies that reionized the Universe
• The impact of inhomogeneous subgrid clumping on cosmic reionization
• The 21 Centimeter Forest
• The distribution of Lyman-limit absorption systems during and after reionization
• Feedback from Clustered Sources During Reionization
• Small-scale structure and the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest baryon acoustic oscillation feature
• Hybrid Cosmological Simulations with Stream Velocities
• Modelling recombinations during cosmological reionization
• Reionization in the Warm Dark Matter Model
• Radiation-induced large-scale structure during the reionization epoch: the autocorrelation function
• Lyalpha heating and its impact on early structure formation
• The Kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect from Patchy Reionization: the View from the Simulations
• IslandFAST: A Semi-numerical Tool for Simulating the Late Epoch of Reionization
• The Effects of Radiative Feedback and Supernova Induced Turbulence on Early Galaxies
• 21 cm Angular Power Spectrum from Minihalos as a Probe of Primordial Spectral Runnings
• The 21cm radiation from minihalos as a probe of small primordial non-Gaussianity
• The nonlinear evolution of baryonic overdensities in the early universe: Initial conditions of numerical simulations
• The contribution of the IGM and minihalos to the 21 cm signal of reionization
• Influence of ~7 keV sterile neutrino dark matter on the process of reionization
• Measuring the cosmic expansion rate using 21-cm velocity acoustic oscillations
• The impact and response of minihalos and the inter-halo medium on cosmic reionization
• 21-cm signatures of residual HI inside cosmic HII regions during reionization
• Source Mergers and Bubble Growth During Reionization
• Joint 21-cm and CMB Forecasts for Constraining Self-Interacting Massive Neutrinos
• Dark matter model favoured by reionization data: 7 keV sterile neutrino vs cold dark matter
• Contribution of Cross-Correlations to the 21cm Angular Power Spectrum in the Epoch of Reionization
• Probing power spectrum enhancement at small scales with the SKA
• Streaming Velocity Effects on the Post-reionization 21 cm Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Signal