Modelling recombinations during cosmological reionization

TL;DR

This paper shows that using a local estimate of the clumping factor in cosmological simulations provides a more accurate and convergent measure of recombination rates during reionization, challenging previous overestimations.

Contribution

It introduces a local method for estimating the clumping factor, improving the accuracy and convergence of recombination rate calculations in reionization simulations.

Findings

Local clumping factor estimates improve numerical convergence.

Previous single-value clumping factors overestimate recombination rates.

Recombination rates during reionization are likely lower than previously thought.

Abstract

An ionization front expanding into a neutral medium can be slowed-down significantly by recombinations. In cosmological numerical simulations the recombination rate is often computed using a 'clumping factor', that takes into account that not all scales in the simulated density field are resolved. Here we demonstrate that using a single value of the clumping factor significantly overestimates the recombination rate, and how a local estimate of the clumping factor is both easy to compute, and gives significantly better numerical convergence. We argue that this lower value of the recombination rate is more relevant during the reionization process and hence that the importance of recombinations during reionization has been overestimated.