Simulating reionization in numerical cosmology

被引：69

作者：

Sokasian, A ^{[1
]}

Abel, T ^{[1
]}

Hernquist, LE ^{[1
]}

机构：

[1] Harvard Univ, Dept Astron, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA

来源：

NEW ASTRONOMY | 2001年 / 6卷 / 06期

基金：

美国国家科学基金会;

关键词：

radiative transfer; cosmology; theory; intergalactic medium;

D O I：

10.1016/S1384-1076(01)00065-3

中图分类号：

P1 [天文学];

学科分类号：

0704 ;

摘要：

The incorporation of radiative transfer effects into cosmological hydrodynamical simulations is essential for understanding how the intergalactic medium (IGM) makes the transition from a neutral medium to one that is almost fully ionized. Here, we present an approximate numerical method designed to study in a statistical sense, how a cosmological density field is ionized by a set of discrete point sources. A diffuse background radiation field is also computed self-consistently in our procedure. The method requires relatively few time steps and can be employed with simulations having high resolution. We describe the details of the algorithm and provide a description of how the method can be applied to the output from a pre-existing cosmological simulation to study the systematic reionization of a particular ionic species. As a first application, we compute the reionization of He II by quasars in the range 3 less than or similar to z less than or similar to 6. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.

引用

页码：359 / 379

页数：21

共 48 条

[21] STIS observations of HeII Gunn-Peterson absorption toward Q0302-003 [J].