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arXiv 1601.07559astro-ph.GAastro-ph.CO
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双星可以提供再电离所需的“失踪光子”

Binary Stars Can Provide the "Missing Photons" Needed for Reionization

Xiangcheng Ma, Philip F. Hopkins, Daniel Kasen, Eliot Quataert, Claude-Andre Faucher-Giguere, Dusan Keres, Norman Murray

摘要:

再电离的经验限制要求星系电离光子逃逸分数fesc> 20%,但最近的高分辨率辐射流体动力学计算一直发现更低的值~1- 5%。虽然这些模型包含了强烈的恒星反馈和逃逸恒星等额外过程,但它们几乎只考虑基于单(孤立)恒星的恒星演化模型,尽管大多数大质量恒星都是双星。我们重新访问这些计算,结合辐射转移和高分辨率的宇宙学模拟的反馈在现实环境(FIRE)项目。对于第一次,我们使用一个恒星演化模型,其中包括一个物理和观测动机的处理双星(BPASS模型)。双星的质量转移和合并增加了恒星形成后期(> 300万年)大质量恒星的数量,这反过来又强烈地增强了后期电离光子的产生(特别是在低金属丰度时)。这些光子是在来自大质量恒星的反馈在ISM中雕刻出逃逸通道后产生的,因此有效地泄漏出星系。结果,时间平均的“有效”逃逸分数(逃逸电离光子与观察到的1500 A光子的比率)增加了4-10倍,足以解释再电离。虽然重要的不确定性仍然存在,但我们得出结论,双星演化可能是理解宇宙电离的关键。

英文摘要:

Empirical constraints on reionization require galactic ionizing photon escape fractions fesc>20%, but recent high-resolution radiation-hydrodynamic calculations have consistently found much lower values ~1-5%. While these models include strong stellar feedback and additional processes such as runaway stars, they almost exclusively consider stellar evolution models based on single (isolated) stars, despite the fact that most massive stars are in binaries. We re-visit these calculations, combining radiative transfer and high-resolution cosmological simulations from the Feedback in Realistic Environments (FIRE) project. For the first time, we use a stellar evolution model that includes a physically and observationally motivated treatment of binaries (the BPASS model). Binary mass transfer and mergers enhance the population of massive stars at late times (>3 Myr) after star formation, which in turn strongly enhances the late-time ionizing photon production (especially at low metallicities). These photons are produced after feedback from massive stars has carved escape channels in the ISM, and so efficiently leak out of galaxies. As a result, the time-averaged "effective" escape fraction (ratio of escaped ionizing photons to observed 1500 A photons) increases by factors 4-10, sufficient to explain reionization. While important uncertainties remain, we conclude that binary evolution may be critical for understanding the ionization of the Universe.

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