Simulations of galaxy formation with radiative transfer: Hydrogen reionization and radiative feedback

TL;DR

This study uses hydrodynamical simulations with radiative transfer to explore hydrogen reionization and radiative feedback effects on galaxy formation, showing star formation alone can reionize the universe by z~6.

Contribution

It introduces a self-consistent simulation method incorporating radiative transfer in galaxy formation, highlighting the impact of radiative feedback on low-mass halos.

Findings

Star formation alone can reionize the universe by redshift 6.

Radiative feedback reduces gas and stellar fractions in low-mass halos.

Models match observed Lyman-alpha forest statistics.

Abstract

We carry out hydrodynamical simulations of galaxy formation that simultaneously follow radiative transfer of hydrogen-ionizing photons, based on the optically-thin variable Eddington tensor approximation as implemented in the {\small GADGET} code. We consider only star-forming galaxies as sources and examine to what extent they can yield a reasonable reionization history and thermal state of the intergalactic medium at redshifts around $z\sim 3$. This serves as an important benchmark for our self-consistent methodology to simulate galaxy formation and reionization, and for future improvements through accounting of other sources and other wavelength ranges. We find that star formation alone is sufficient for reionizing the Universe by redshift $z\sim6$. For a suitable choice of the escape fraction and the heating efficiency, our models are approximately able to account at the same time for the one-point function and the power spectrum of the Lyman-$\alpha$ forest. The radiation field has an important impact on the star formation rate density in our simulations and significantly lowers the gaseous and stellar fractions in low-mass dark matter halos. Our results thus directly demonstrate the importance of radiative feedback for galaxy formation. The spatial and temporal importance of this effect can be studied accurately with the modelling technique explored here, allowing more faithful simulations of galaxy formation.