Recent He II Lyman-alpha forest observations from 2.0 < z < 3.2 show large fluctuations in the optical depth at z > 2.7. These results point to a fluctuating He-ionizing background, which may be due to the end of helium reionization of this era. We present a fast, semi-numeric procedure to approximate detailed cosmological simulations. We compute the distribution of dark matter halos, ionization state of helium, and density field at z = 3 in broad agreement with recent simulations. Given our speed and flexibility, we investigate a range of ionizing source and active quasar prescriptions. Spanning a large area of parameter space, we find order-of-magnitude fluctuations in the He II ionization rate in the post-reionization regime. During reionization, the fluctuations are even stronger and develop a bimodal distribution, in contrast to semi-analytic models and the hydrogen equivalent. These distributions indicate a low-level ionizing background even at significant He II fractions.
We explore the mean and fluctuating redshifted 21 cm signal in numerical simulations of cosmic reionization from the Cosmic Reionization On Computers (CROC) project. We find that the mean signal varies between about $\pm20\rm{mK}$. Most significantly, we find that the negative pre-reionization dip at $z\sim10-15$ only extends to $\langleΔT_B\rangle\sim-20\rm{mK}$, in agreement with prior simulation results and in significant contrast to Pritchard & Loeb analytical model, requiring substantially higher sensitivity from global signal experiments that operate in this redshift range (EDGES-II, LED…
In recent years, the rise in the number of Lyman Break Galaxies detected at high redshifts z >= 6 has opened up the possibility of understanding early galaxy formation physics in great detail. In particular, the faint-end slope (alpha) of the Ultra-violet luminosity function (UV LF) of these galaxies is a potential probe of feedback effects that suppress star formation in low mass haloes. In this work, we propose a proof-of-concept calculation for constraining the fluctuating UV background during reionization by constraining alpha in different volumes of the Universe. Because of patchy reioniz…
The sources that drove cosmological reionization left clues regarding their identity in the slope and inhomogeneity of the ultraviolet ionizing background (UVB): Bright quasars (QSOs) generate a hard UVB with predominantly large-scale fluctuations while Population II stars generate a softer one with smaller-scale fluctuations. Metal absorbers probe the UVB's slope because different ions are sensitive to different energies. Likewise, they probe spatial fluctuations because they originate in regions where a galaxy-driven UVB is harder and more intense. We take a first step towards studying the r…
One of the most promising probes to constrain the reionization history of the universe is the power spectrum of neutral hydrogen 21 cm emission fluctuations. The corresponding analyses require computationally efficient modelling of reionization, usually achieved through semi-numerical simulations. We investigate the capability of one such semi-numerical code, SCRIPT, to constrain the reionization parameters. Our study involves creating a mock data set corresponding to the upcoming SKA-Low, followed by a Bayesian inference method to constrain the model parameters. In particular, we explore in d…
Low mass galaxies are thought to provide the bulk of the ionizing radiation necessary to reionize the Universe. The amount of photons escaping the galaxies is poorly constrained theoretically, and difficult to measure observationally. Yet it is an essential parameter of reionization models. We study in detail how ionizing radiation can leak from high redshift galaxies. For this purpose, we use a series of high resolution radiation hydrodynamics simulations, zooming on three dwarf galaxies in a cosmological context. We find that the energy and momentum input from the supernova explosions has a …
In a semi-numerical model of reionization, the evolution of ionization fraction is simulated approximately by the ionizing photon to baryon ratio criterion. In this paper we incorporate a semi-analytical model of galaxy formation based on the Millennium II N-body simulation into the semi-numerical modeling of reionization. The semi-analytical model is used to predict the production of ionizing photons, then we use the semi-numerical method to model the reionization process. Such an approach allows more detailed modeling of the reionization, and also connects observations of galaxies at low and…
We present the algorithm and main results of our semi-numerical simulation, islandFAST, which is developed from the 21cmFAST and designed for the late stage of reionization. The islandFAST predicts the evolution and size distribution of the large scale under-dense neutral regions (neutral islands), and we find that the late Epoch of Reionization (EoR) proceeds very fast, showing a characteristic scale of the neutral islands at each redshift. Using islandFAST, we compare the impact of two types of absorption systems, i.e. the large scale under-dense neutral islands versus small scale over-dense…
We present a computationally efficient and fast semi-numerical technique for simulating the Lyman-$α$ (Ly$α$) absorption optical depth in presence of neutral hydrogen "islands" left over from reionization at redshifts $5 \lesssim z \lesssim 6$. The main inputs to the analysis are (i) a semi-numerical photon-conserving model of ionized regions during reionization (named SCRIPT) along with a prescription for simulating the shadowing by neutral islands and (ii) the fluctuating Gunn-Peterson approximation to model the Ly$α$ absorption. Our model is then used for simulating the large-scale fluctuat…
The methods for studying the epoch of cosmic reionization vary from full radiative transfer simulations to purely analytical models. While numerical approaches are computationally expensive and are not suitable for generating many mock catalogs, analytical methods are based on assumptions and approximations. We explore the interconnection between both methods. First, we ask how the analytical framework of excursion set formalism can be used for statistical analysis of numerical simulations and visual representation of the morphology of ionization fronts. Second, we explore the methods of train…
Interpreting 21cm measurements from current and upcoming experiments like HERA and the SKA will provide new scientific insights and exciting implications for astrophysics and cosmology regarding the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). Several recent works have proposed using machine learning methods, such as convolutions neural networks (CNNs), to analyze images of reionization generated by these experiments since they could take full advantage of information contained in the image. Generally, these studies have used only a single semi-numeric method to generate the input 21cm data. In this work, we …
We have developed a modular semi-numerical code that computes the time and spatially dependent ionization of neutral hydrogen (HI), neutral (HeI) and singly ionized helium (HeII) in the intergalactic medium (IGM). The model accounts for recombinations and provides different descriptions for the photoionization rate that are used to calculate the residual HI fraction in ionized regions. We compare different semi-numerical reionization schemes to a radiative transfer (RT) simulation. We use the RT simulation as a benchmark, and find that the semi-numerical approaches produce similar HII and HeII…
We present statistics of HeII Lya transmission spikes and large-scale absorption troughs using archival high-resolution ($R=λ/Δλ\simeq 12,500$-$18,000$) far-UV spectra of eight HeII-transparent quasars obtained with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. The sample covers the redshift range 2.5<z<3.8, thereby probing the rapidly evolving HeII absorption at the end of the HeII reionization epoch. The measured lengths of the troughs decrease dramatically from L>100cMpc at z>3 to L~30cMpc at z~2.7, signaling a significant progression of HeII reionization at these redshifts…
We compare the predictions of four different algorithms for the distribution of ionized gas during the Epoch of Reionization. These algorithms are all used to run a 100 Mpc/h simulation of reionization with the same initial conditions. Two of the algorithms are state-of-the-art ray-tracing radiative transfer codes that use disparate methods to calculate the ionization history. The other two algorithms are fast but more approximate schemes based on iterative application of a smoothing filter to the underlying source and density fields. We compare these algorithms' resulting ionization and 21 cm…
We report the discovery of an extremely long ($\sim$110 Mpc/$h$) and dark ($τ_{\rm eff} \gtrsim 7$) Ly$α$ trough extending down to $z \simeq 5.5$ towards the $z_{\rm em} \simeq 6.0$ quasar ULAS J0148+0600. We use these new data in combination with Ly$α$ forest measurements from 42 quasars at $4.5 \le z_{\rm em} \le 6.4$ to conduct an updated analysis of the line-of-sight variance in the intergalactic Ly$α$ opacity over $4 \le z \le 6$. We find that the scatter in transmission among lines of sight near $z \sim 6$ significantly exceeds theoretical expectations for either a uniform ultraviolet ba…
In this first of several application papers, we investigate the mechanics of reionization from stellar sources in high-z galaxies, the utility of various clumping factors on estimating the recombination time in the IGM, and the photon budget required to achieve reionization. We test the accuracy of the static and time-dependent models of Madau et al. as predictors of reionization completion/maintenance. We simulate a WMAP7 LCDM cosmological model in a 20 Mpc comoving cube with 800^3 uniform fluid cells and dark matter particles. By tuning our star formation to approximately match the observed …
Efficient and accurate simulations of the reionization epoch are crucial to exploring the vast uncharted parameter space that will soon be constrained by measurements of the 21 cm power spectrum. One of these parameters, $R_{\rm max}$, is meant to characterize the absorption of photons by residual neutral gas inside of ionized regions, but has historically been implemented in a very simplistic fashion acting only as a maximum filtering scale. We leverage the correspondence between excursion set methods and the integrated flux from ionizing sources to define two physically-motivated prescriptio…
Cosmic Reionization On Computers (CROC) is a long-term program of numerical simulations of cosmic reionization. Its goal is to model fully self-consistently (albeit not necessarily from the first principles) all relevant physics, from radiative transfer to gas dynamics and star formation, in simulation volumes of up to 100 comoving Mpc, and with spatial resolution approaching 100 pc in physical units. In this method paper we describe our numerical method, the design of simulations, and the calibration of numerical parameters. Using several sets (ensembles) of simulations in 20 Mpc/h and 40 Mpc…
We present a comparison between several observational tests of the post-reionization IGM and the numerical simulations of reionization completed under the Cosmic Reionization On Computers (CROC) project. The CROC simulations match the gap distribution reasonably well, and also provide a good match for the distribution of peak heights, but there is a notable lack of wide peaks in the simulated spectra and the flux PDFs are poorly matched in the narrow redshift interval 5.5<z<5.7, with the match at other redshifts being significantly better, albeit not exact. Both discrepancies are related: simu…
We present a detailed comparison of three different simulations of the epoch of reionization (EoR). The radiative transfer simulation (${\rm C}^2$-RAY) among them is our benchmark. Radiative transfer codes can produce realistic results, but are computationally expensive. We compare it with two semi-numerical techniques: one using the same halos as ${\rm C}^2$-RAY as its sources (Sem-Num), and one using a conditional Press-Schechter scheme (CPS+GS). These are vastly more computationally efficient than ${\rm C}^2$-RAY, but use more simplistic physical assumptions. We evaluate these simulations i…
During the EoR, the first stars and galaxies appear while creating ionized bubbles that will eventually percolate near z=6. These ionized bubbles and percolation process are nowadays under a lot of scrutiny since observations of the HI gas will be carried on in the next decade with e.g. the SKA radiotelescope. Studies of the EoR are performed on semi-analytical and fully numerical cosmological simulations to investigate e.g. the topology of the process. We analyse the topology of EoR models through regions that are under the radiative influence of ionization sources. They are associated with p…
In this chapter we provide an overview of the current status of the simulations and modelling of the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization. We discuss the modelling requirements as dictated by the characteristic scales of the problem and the SKA instrumental properties and the planned survey parameters. Current simulations include most of the relevant physical processes. They can follow the full nonlinear dynamics and are now reaching the required scale and dynamic range, although small-scale physics still needs to be included at sub-grid level. However, despite a significant progress in devel…
We use observations of spatially-aligned C II, C IV, Si II, Si IV, and O I absorbers to probe the slope and intensity of the ultraviolet background (UVB) at $z \sim 6$. We accomplish this by comparing observations with predictions from a cosmological hydrodynamic simulation using three trial UVBs applied in post-processing: a spectrally soft, fluctuating UVB calculated using multi-frequency radiative transfer; a soft, spatially-uniform UVB; and a hard, spatially-uniform "quasars-only" model. When considering our paired high-ionization absorbers (C IV/Si IV), the observed statistics strongly pr…
We describe a new methodology to analyze the reionization process in numerical simulations: The evo- lution of the reionization is investigated by focusing on the merger histories of individual HII regions. From the merger tree of ionized patches, one can track the individual evolution of the regions such as e.g. their size, or investigate the properties of the percolation process by looking at the formation rate, the frequency of mergers and the number of individual HII regions involved in the mergers. By applying this technique to cosmological simulations with radiative transfer, we show how…
We introduce the BlueTides simulation and report initial results for the luminosity functions of the first galaxies and AGN, and their contribution to reionization. BlueTides was run on the BlueWaters cluster at NCSA from $z=99$ to $z=8.0$ and includes 2$\times$7040$^3$ particles in a $400$Mpc/h per side box, making it the largest hydrodynamic simulation ever performed at high redshift. BlueTides includes a pressure-entropy formulation of smoothed particle hydrodynamics, gas cooling, star formation (including molecular hydrogen), black hole growth and models for stellar and AGN feedback proces…
While limited to low spatial resolution, the next generation low-frequency radio interferometers that target 21 cm observations during the era of reionization and prior will have instantaneous fields-of-view that are many tens of square degrees on the sky. Predictions related to various statistical measurements of the 21 cm brightness temperature must then be pursued with numerical simulations of reionization with correspondingly large volume box sizes, of order 1000 Mpc on one side. We pursue a semi-numerical scheme to simulate the 21 cm signal during and prior to Reionization by extending a …
Next generation radio experiments such as LOFAR, HERA and SKA are expected to probe the Epoch of Reionization and claim a first direct detection of the cosmic 21cm signal within the next decade. Data volumes will be enormous and can thus potentially revolutionize our understanding of the early Universe and galaxy formation. However, numerical modelling of the Epoch of Reionization can be prohibitively expensive for Bayesian parameter inference and how to optimally extract information from incoming data is currently unclear. Emulation techniques for fast model evaluations have recently been pro…
We compare the results from several sets of cosmological simulations of cosmic reionization, produced under Cosmic Reionization On Computers (CROC) project, with existing observational data on the high-redshift Ly-alpha forest and the abundance of Ly-alpha emitters. We find good consistency with the observational measurements and the previous simulation work. By virtue of having several independent realizations for each set of numerical parameters, we are able to explore the effect of cosmic variance on observable quantities. One unexpected conclusion we are forced into is that cosmic variance…
Semi-numerical models of the reionization of neutral hydrogen (HI) based on the excursion set (ES) approach are known to violate photon number conservation at the few per cent level. In this work, we highlight a more severe, previously unrecognized shortcoming of ES models: the large-scale 21 cm power spectrum (equivalently, HI bias b_HI) is a relatively strong function of the spatial resolution used to generate ES ionization maps. We trace this problem to the fact that photon non-conservation in these models arises from a resolution-dependent mixture of spatially resolved, photon non-conservi…
By depleting the ionizing photon budget available to expand cosmic HII regions, recombining systems (or Lyman limit systems) can have a large impact during (and following) cosmic reionization. Unfortunately, directly resolving such structures in large-scale reionization simulations is computationally impractical. Instead, here we implement a sub-grid prescription for tracking inhomogeneous recombinations in the intergalactic medium. Building on previous work parameterizing photo-heating feedback on star-formation, we present large-scale, semi-numeric reionization simulations which self-consist…
Given that the reionization history of cosmic hydrogen is yet to be stringently constrained, it is worth checking the prospects of doing so using physically motivated models and available observational data. For this purpose, we use an extended version of the explicitly photon-conserving semi-numerical model of reionization, $\texttt{SCRIPT}$, which also includes thermal evolution of the intergalactic medium (IGM). The model incorporates the effects of inhomogeneous recombination and radiative feedback self-consistently and is characterized by five free parameters (two for the redshift-depende…
Reionization of the cosmic neutral hydrogen by the first stars in the Universe is an inhomogeneous process which produces spatial fluctuations in free electron density. These fluctuations lead to observable signatures in cosmological probes like the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We explore the effect of the electron density fluctuations on CMB using photon-conserving semi-numerical simulations of reionization named \texttt{SCRIPT}. We show that the amplitude of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (kSZ) and $B$-mode polarization signal depends on the patchiness in the spatial distribution of e…
We use fully self-consistent numerical simulations of cosmic reionization, completed under the Cosmic Reionization On Computers (CROC) project, to explore how well the recombinations in the ionized IGM can be quantified by the effective "clumping factor." The density distribution in the simulations (and, presumably, in a real universe) is highly inhomogeneous and more-or-less smoothly varying in space. However, even in highly complex and dynamic environments the concept of the IGM remains reasonably well-defined; the largest ambiguity comes from the unvirialized regions around galaxies that ar…
In this work we present a new hybrid method to simulate the thermal effects of the reionization in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. The method improves upon the standard approach used in simulations of the intergalactic medium (IGM) and galaxy formation without a significant increase of the computational cost allowing for efficient exploration of the parameter space. The method uses a small set of phenomenological input parameters and combines a semi-numerical reionization model to solve for the topology of reionization and an approximate model of how reionization heats the IGM, with t…
We describe a new methodology to analyze the reionization process in numerical simulations: the chronology and the geometry of reionization is investigated by means of merger histories of individual HII regions. From the merger tree of ionized patches, one can track the individual evolution of the regions properties such as e.g. their size, or the intensity of the percolation process by looking at the formation rate, the frequency of mergers and the number of individual HII regions involved in the mergers. We apply the merger tree technique to simulations of reionization with three different k…
Small-scale density fluctuations can significantly affect reionization but are typically modelled quite crudely. Unresolved fluctuations in numerical simulations and analytical calculations are included using a gas clumping factor, typically assumed to be independent of the local environment. In Paper I, we presented an improved, local density-dependent model for the sub-grid gas clumping. Here we extend this using an empirical stochastic model based on the results from high-resolution numerical simulations which fully resolve all relevant fluctuations. Our model reproduces well both the mean …
The ionization and thermal state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) during the epoch of reionization has been of interest in recent times because of their close connection to the first stars. We present in this paper a semi-numerical code which computes the large-scale temperature and ionized hydrogen fields in a cosmologically representative volume accounting for the patchiness in these quantities arising from reionization. The code is an extension to a previously developed version for studying the growth of ionized regions, namely, Semi Numerical Code for ReionIzation with PhoTon Conservation…
We investigate the impact of sinks of ionizing radiation on the reionization-era 21-cm signal, focusing on 1-point statistics. We consider sinks in both the intergalactic medium and inside galaxies. At a fixed filling factor of HII regions, sinks will have two main effects on the 21-cm morphology: (i) as inhomogeneous absorbers of ionizing photons they result in smaller and more widespread cosmic HII patches; and (ii) as reservoirs of neutral gas they contribute a non-zero 21-cm signal in otherwise ionized regions. Both effects damp the contrast between neutral and ionized patches during reion…
The X-ray background during the epoch of reionization is currently poorly constrained. We demonstrate that it is possible to use first generation 21 cm experiments to calibrate it. Using the semi-numerical simulation, 21cmFAST, we calculate the dependence of the 21 cm power spectrum on the X-ray background flux. Comparing the signal to the sensitivity of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) we find that in the redshift interval z=8-14 the 21 cm signal is detectable based on the upper limit set by the present-day unresolved soft X-ray background. We show that there is no degeneracy between the X…
Fractal dimensions can be used to characterize the clustering and lacunarities in density distributions. We use generalized fractal dimensions to study the neutral hydrogen distribution (HI) during the epoch of reionization. Using a semi-numeric model of ionized bubbles to generate the HI field, we calculate the fractal dimensions for length scales $\sim 10 h^{-1}$ cMpc. We find that the HI field displays significant multifractal behaviour and is not consistent with homogeneity at these scales when the mass averaged neutral fraction $\bar{x}_{\rm HI}^M \gtrsim 0.5$. This multifractal nature is…
The Abundance Matching Box for the Epoch of Reionization (AMBER) is a semi-numerical code for modeling the cosmic dawn. The new algorithm is not based on the excursion set formalism for reionization, but takes the novel approach of calculating the reionization-redshift field $z_\mathrm{re}(\boldsymbol{x})$ assuming that hydrogen gas encountering higher radiation intensity are photoionized earlier. Redshift values are assigned while matching the abundance of ionized mass according to a given mass-weighted ionization fraction $\bar{x}_\mathrm{i}(z)$. The code has the unique advantage of allowing…
We study the topology of reionization using accurate three-dimensional radiative transfer calculations post-processed on outputs from cosmological hydrodynamic simulations. In our simulations, reionization begins in overdense regions and then "leaks" directly into voids, with filaments reionizing last owing to their combination of high recombination rate and low emissivity. This result depends on the uniquely-biased emissivity field predicted by our prescriptions for star formation and feedback, which have previously been shown to account for a wide array of measurements of the post-reionizati…
Lyman-limit absorption systems can play many important roles during and after cosmological reionization. Unfortunately, due to the prohibitively large dynamic range required, it is impossible to self-consistently include these systems in cosmological simulations. Using fast and versatile semi-numeric simulations, we systematically explore the spatial distribution of absorption systems during and following reionization. We self-calibrate the resulting number of absorbers to the mean free path (mfp) of the ionizing ultraviolet background (UVB), and present results at a given mfp and neutral hydr…
Upcoming experiments such as the SKA will provide huge quantities of data. Fast modelling of the high-redshift 21cm signal will be crucial for efficiently comparing these data sets with theory. The most detailed theoretical predictions currently come from numerical simulations and from faster but less accurate semi-numerical simulations. Recently, machine learning techniques have been proposed to emulate the behaviour of these semi-numerical simulations with drastically reduced time and computing cost. We compare the viability of five such machine learning techniques for emulating the 21cm pow…
In this paper I show that simulations of reionization performed under the Cosmic Reionization On Computers (CROC) project do converge in space and mass, albeit rather slowly. A fully converged solution (for a given star formation and feedback model) can be determined at a level of precision of about 20%, but such a solution is useless in practice, since achieving it in production-grade simulations would require a large set of runs at various mass and spatial resolutions, and computational resources for such an undertaking are not yet readily available. In order to make progress in the interim,…
Three-dimensional radiative transfer simulations of the epoch of reionization can produce realistic results, but are computationally expensive. On the other hand, simulations relying on one-dimensional radiative transfer solutions are faster but limited in accuracy due to their more approximate nature. Here, we compare the performance of the reionization simulation codes grizzly and C2-ray which use 1D and 3D radiative transfer schemes respectively. The comparison is performed using the same cosmological density fields, halo catalogues and source properties. We find that the ionization maps, a…
The reionization process is expected to be prolonged by the small-scale absorbers (SSAs) of ionizing photons, which have been seen as Lyman-limit systems in quasar absorption line observations. We use a set of semi-numerical simulations to investigate the effects of absorption systems on the reionization process, especially their impacts on the neutral islands during the late Epoch of Reionization (EoR). Three models are studied, i.e. the extreme case of no-SSA model with a high level of ionizing background, the moderate-SSA model with a relatively high level of ionizing background, and the de…
A novel method to characterize the topology of the early-universe intergalactic medium during the epoch of cosmic reionization is presented. The 21-cm radiation background from high redshift is analyzed through the calculation of the 2-dimensional (2D) genus. The radiative transfer of hydrogen-ionizing photons and ionization-rate equations are calculated in a suite of numerical simulations under various input parameters. The 2D genus is calculated from the mock 21-cm images of the high-redshift Universe. We construct the 2D genus curve by varying the threshold differential brightness temperatu…
The cosmic reionization of hydrogen was the last major phase transition in the evolution of the universe, which drastically changed the ionization and thermal conditions in the cosmic gas. To the best of our knowledge today, this process was driven by the ultra-violet radiation from young, star-forming galaxies and from first quasars. We review the current observational constraints on cosmic reionization, as well as the dominant physical effects that control the ionization of intergalactic gas. We then focus on numerical modeling of this process with computer simulations. Over the past decade,…
In this work, the sixth of a series, we use the ASTRAEUS (semi-numerical rAdiative tranSfer coupling of galaxy formaTion and Reionization in N-body dark matter simUlationS) framework to investigate the nature of the sources that reionized the Universe. We extend ASTRAEUS, which already couples a galaxy formation semi-analytical model with a detailed semi-numerical reionization scheme, to include a model for black hole formation, growth, and the production of ionizing radiation from associated AGN (active galactic nuclei). We calibrate our fiducial AGN model to reproduce the bolometric luminosi…
Double-Peaked Ly$α$ Emission during Reionization Requires Nearby Voids and a Favorable Local Ionizing Background
Institute for Basic Science（韩国基础科学研究院）；Center for Computational Sciences（计算科学中心）；The University of Texas at Dallas（德克萨斯大学达拉斯分校）；Chungbuk National University（忠北国立大学）；Observatoire Astronomique de Strasbourg, Université de Strasbourg, CNRS UMR 7550（斯特拉斯堡天文台，斯特拉斯堡大学，法国国家科学研究中心）；Institut d’Astrophysique de Paris, UMR 7095, CNRS, UPMC Univ. Paris VI（巴黎天体物理学研究所，法国国家科学研究中心，巴黎第六大学）；The University of Nottingham（诺丁汉大学）；University of Texas, Austin（德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校）；University of Sussex（萨塞克斯大学）
We introduce a new self-consistent model of galaxy evolution and reionization, ASTRAEUS (semi-numerical rAdiative tranSfer coupling of galaxy formaTion and Reionization in N-body dArk mattEr simUlationS), which couples a state-of-the-art N-body simulation with the semi-analytical galaxy evolution DELPHI and the semi-numerical reionization scheme CIFOG. ASTRAEUS includes all the key processes of galaxy formation and evolution (including accretion, mergers, supernova and radiative feedback) and follows the time and spatial evolution of the ionized regions in the intergalactic medium (IGM). Impor…
We describe an extension of the Enzo code to enable fully-coupled radiation hydrodynamical simulation of inhomogeneous reionization in large $\sim (100 Mpc)^3$ cosmological volumes with thousands to millions of point sources. We solve all dynamical, radiative transfer, thermal, and ionization processes self-consistently on the same mesh, as opposed to a postprocessing approach which coarse-grains the radiative transfer. We do, however, employ a simple subgrid model for star formation which we calibrate to observations. Radiation transport is done in the grey flux-limited diffusion (FLD) approx…
The reduced speed of light approximation is used in a variety of simulations of the epoch of reionization and galaxy formation. Its popularity stems from its ability to drastically reduce the computing cost of a simulation, by allowing the use of larger, and therefore fewer timesteps to reach a solution. It is physically motivated by the fact that ionization fronts rarely propagate faster than some fraction of the speed of light. However, no global proof of the physical validity of this approach is available, and possible artefacts resulting from this approximation therefore need to be identif…
We compare numerical methods for solving the radiative transfer equation in the context of the photoionization of intergalactic gaseous hydrogen and helium by a central radiating source. Direct integration of the radiative transfer equation and solutions using photon packets are examined, both for solutions to the time-dependent radiative transfer equation and in the infinite-speed-of-light approximation. The photon packet schemes are found to be more generally computationally efficient than a direct integration scheme. Whilst all codes accurately describe the growth rate of hydrogen and heliu…
