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American Astronomical Society, Astrophysical Journal, 1(689), p. 1-16, 2008

DOI: 10.1086/592487

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Cosmic Reionization and the 21-cm signal: Comparison between an analytical model and a simulation

This paper is made freely available by the publisher.
This paper is made freely available by the publisher.

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Data provided by SHERPA/RoMEO

Abstract

We measure several properties of the reionization process and the corresponding low-frequency 21-cm signal associated with the neutral hydrogen distribution, using a large volume, high resolution simulation of cosmic reionization. The brightness temperature of the 21-cm signal is derived by post-processing this numerical simulation with a semi-analytical prescription. Our study extends to high redshifts (z ~ 25) where, in addition to collisional coupling, our post-processed simulations take into account the inhomogeneities in the heating of the neutral gas by X-rays and the effect of an inhomogeneous Lya radiation field. Unlike the well-studied case where spin temperature is assumed to be significantly greater than the temperature of the cosmic microwave background due to uniform heating of the gas by X-rays, spatial fluctuations in both the Lya radiation field and X-ray intensity impact predictions related to the brightness temperature at z > 10, during the early stages of reionization and gas heating. The statistics of the 21-cm signal from our simulation are then compared to existing analytical models in the literature and we find that these analytical models provide a reasonably accurate description of the 21-cm power spectrum at z 10 and, with upcoming interferometric data, these differences in return can provide a way to better understand the astrophysical processes during reionization. ; Comment: Major paper revision to match version accepted for publication in ApJ. Simulation now fully includes fluctuations in the X-ray heating and the Lya radiation field. 18 pages, 13 figures