Reionization time of the Local Group and Local-Group-like halo pairs

TL;DR

This study investigates the reionization history of Local Group-like halo pairs using a detailed simulation, revealing diverse reionization timelines and a correlation between pair energy and reionization timing.

Contribution

It provides the first detailed analysis of reionization times for Local Group analogs, highlighting the diversity and environmental dependence of their reionization histories.

Findings

Halo pairs show diverse reionization times within an inside-out model.

Bound pairs tend to reionize earlier than unbound pairs by up to 50 Myr.

The Local Group's reionization time is earlier than the average for similar halos.

Abstract

Patchy cosmic reionization resulted in the ionizing UV background asynchronous rise across the Universe. The latter might have left imprints visible in present day observations. Several numerical simulation-based studies show correlations between reionization time and overdensities and object masses today. To remove the mass from the study, as it may not be the sole important parameter, this paper focuses solely on the properties of paired halos within the same mass range as the Milky Way. For this purpose, it uses CoDaII, a fully-coupled radiation hydrodynamics reionization simulation of the local Universe. This simulation holds a halo pair representing the Local Group, in addition to other pairs, sharing similar mass, mass ratio, distance separation and isolation criteria but in other environments, alongside isolated halos within the same mass range. Investigations of the paired halo reionization histories reveal a wide diversity although always inside-out given our reionization model. Within this model, halos in a close pair tend to be reionized at the same time but being in a pair does not bring to an earlier time their mean reionization. The only significant trend is found between the total energy at z = 0 of the pairs and their mean reionization time: pairs with the smallest total energy (bound) are reionized up to 50 Myr earlier than others (unbound). Above all, this study reveals the variety of reionization histories undergone by halo pairs similar to the Local Group, that of the Local Group being far from an average one. In our model, its reionization time is ~625 Myr against 660+/-4 Myr (z~8.25 against 7.87+/-0.02) on average.