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Quasars at the Cosmic Dawn: effects on Reionization properties in cosmological simulations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  08 May 2018

Enrico Garaldi
Affiliation:
Argelander Institut für Astronomie der Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121 Bonn, Germany email: [email protected]
Michele Compostella
Affiliation:
Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics, Karl-Schwarzschild Straße 1, 85741 Garching, Germany Max Planck Computing and Data Facility, Gießenbachstraße 2, 85741 Garching, Germany
Cristiano Porciani
Affiliation:
Argelander Institut für Astronomie der Universität Bonn, Auf dem Hügel 71, 53121 Bonn, Germany email: [email protected]
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Abstract

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We study a model of cosmic reionization where quasars (QSOs) are the dominant source of ionizing photons at all relevant epochs. We employ a suite of adaptive hydrodynamical simulations post-processed with a multi-wavelength Monte Carlo radiative-transfer code and calibrate them in order to accurately reproduce the observed quasar luminosity function and emissivity evolution. Our results show that the QSO-only model fails in reproducing key observables linked to the Helium reionization, as the temperature evolution of the inter-galactic medium (IGM) and the HeII effective optical depth in synthetic Lyα spectra. Nevertheless, we find hints that an increased quasar contribution can explain recent measurements of a large inhomogeneity in the IGM at redshift z ≈ 5. Finally, we devise a method capable of constraining the QSOs contribution to the reionization from the properties of the HeII Lyα forest at z ≈ 3.5.

Type
Contributed Papers
Copyright
Copyright © International Astronomical Union 2018 

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