Dwarf Galaxies with Ionizing Radiation Feedback. I: Escape of Ionizing Photons

TL;DR

This study introduces a new simulation method for ionizing radiation and supernova feedback in galactic disks, revealing how ionizing photons escape from star-forming regions and the galaxy, with implications for understanding galaxy evolution.

Contribution

We developed a star-forming molecular cloud particle method with ray-tracing for ionizing radiation, enabling detailed study of photon escape and feedback effects in galactic disks.

Findings

Escape fraction fluctuates between 0.08% and 5.9% with a mean of 1.1%.

Escape photons have a large opening angle of over 60 degrees.

High escape fractions are dominated by a few particles with high individual escape fractions.

Abstract

We describe a new method for simulating ionizing radiation and supernova feedback in the analogues of low-redshift galactic disks. In this method, which we call star-forming molecular cloud (SFMC) particles, we use a ray-tracing technique to solve the radiative transfer equation for ultraviolet photons emitted by thousands of distinct particles on the fly. Joined with high numerical resolution of 3.8 pc, the realistic description of stellar feedback helps to self-regulate star formation. This new feedback scheme also enables us to study the escape of ionizing photons from star-forming clumps and from a galaxy, and to examine the evolving environment of star-forming gas clumps. By simulating a galactic disk in a halo of 2.3e11 Msun, we find that the average escape fraction from all radiating sources on the spiral arms (excluding the central 2.5 kpc) fluctuates between 0.08% and 5.9% during a ~20 Myr period with a mean value of 1.1%. The flux of escaped photons from these sources is not strongly beamed, but manifests a large opening angle of more than 60 degree from the galactic pole. Further, we investigate the escape fraction per SFMC particle, f_esc(i), and how it evolves as the particle ages. We discover that the average escape fraction f_esc is dominated by a small number of SFMC particles with high f_esc(i). On average, the escape fraction from a SFMC particle rises from 0.27% at its birth to 2.1% at the end of a particle lifetime, 6 Myrs. This is because SFMC particles drift away from the dense gas clumps in which they were born, and because the gas around the star-forming clumps is dispersed by ionizing radiation and supernova feedback. The framework established in this study brings deeper insight into the physics of photon escape fraction from an individual star-forming clump, and from a galactic disk.