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arXiv 1707.06993astro-ph.CO
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在再电离时期氢在IGM中的自屏蔽

Self-shielding of hydrogen in the IGM during the epoch of reionization

Jonathan Chardin, Girish Kulkarni, Martin G. Haehnelt

摘要:

我们研究星系际氢对电离辐射的自屏蔽辐射转移模拟宇宙再电离仔细校准莱曼α森林数据。虽然自屏蔽区域在后再电离宇宙中表现为莱曼极限系统,但在这里,我们专注于它们在再电离过程中的演化(红移z=6-10)。在这些红移下,氢电离辐射的空间分布是高度不均匀的,宇宙的某些区域仍然是中性的。在模拟中屏蔽了中性区和电离源后,我们发现氢的光电离率与局部氢密度的关系与再电离后宇宙中的情况非常相似。在这些红移中,自屏蔽变得重要的物理氢密度约为平均氢密度的$\mathrm{n_H \sim 3 \times 10^{-3} cm^{-3}}$或$\sim$的20倍,反映了这样一个事实,即在再电离过程中,光电离率通常足够低,以至于宇宙网中的细丝经常是自屏蔽的。典型的自屏蔽密度的值在红移z=3和10之间减小了3倍,并且以简单的方式遵循电离区域中的平均光电离率的演变。我们提供了一个简单的参数化的光电离率作为密度的函数在自屏蔽区域的再电离时代。

英文摘要:

We investigate self-shielding of intergalactic hydrogen against ionizing radiation in radiative transfer simulations of cosmic reionization carefully calibrated with Lyman alpha forest data. While self-shielded regions manifest as Lyman-limit systems in the post-reionization Universe, here we focus on their evolution during reionization (redshifts z=6-10). At these redshifts, the spatial distribution of hydrogen-ionizing radiation is highly inhomogeneous, and some regions of the Universe are still neutral. After masking the neutral regions and ionizing sources in the simulation, we find that the hydrogen photoionization rate depends on the local hydrogen density in a manner very similar to that in the post-reionization Universe. The characteristic physical hydrogen density above which self-shielding becomes important at these redshifts is about $\mathrm{n_H \sim 3 \times 10^{-3} cm^{-3}}$, or $\sim$ 20 times the mean hydrogen density, reflecting the fact that during reionization photoionization rates are typically low enough that the filaments in the cosmic web are often self-shielded. The value of the typical self-shielding density decreases by a factor of 3 between redshifts z=3 and 10, and follows the evolution of the average photoionization rate in ionized regions in a simple fashion. We provide a simple parameterization of the photoionization rate as a function of density in self-shielded regions during the epoch of reionization.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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