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

TL;DR

This paper compares an analytical model and a high-resolution simulation of cosmic reionization, focusing on the 21-cm signal, highlighting the importance of inhomogeneous heating and radiation fields at high redshifts.

Contribution

It introduces a detailed simulation including inhomogeneous heating and radiation effects and compares its results with existing analytical models for the 21-cm signal.

Findings

Analytical models accurately predict the 21-cm power spectrum at z < 10.

Spatial fluctuations significantly affect the 21-cm brightness temperature at z > 10.

Differences at high redshift can inform understanding of reionization processes.

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. Such an agreement is useful since analytical models are better suited to quickly explore the full astrophysical and cosmological parameter space relevant for future 21-cm surveys. We find, nevertheless, non-negligible differences that can be attributed to differences in the inhomogeneous X-ray heating and Lya coupling at z > 10 and, with upcoming interferometric data, these differences in return can provide a way to better understand the astrophysical processes during reionization.