Cosmic reionization by stellar sources: population III stars

By Aaron Sokasian, Tom Abel, L. Hernquist, Volker Springel. 2003

236 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We combine fast radiative transfer calculations with high-resolution hydrodynamical simulations to study an epoch of early hydrogen reionization by primordial stellar sources at redshifts 15 ≤ z ≤ 30. We consider the implications of various local and global feedback mechanisms using a set of models that bracket the severity of these effects to determine, qualitatively, how they may have influenced the global star formation rate and the details of hydrogen reionization. With relatively conservative assumptions, most of our models suggest that population III star formation proceeds in a self-regulated manner both locally and globally and, for a conventional ACDM cosmology, can significantly reionize the intergalactic medium between 15 ≤ z ≤ 20 as long as a large fraction of ionizing photons can escape from these earliest galaxies. We then combine these results with our earlier work focusing on the role of population II stars in galaxies with virial temperatures ≥ 10 4 K at redshifts 5 ≤ z ≤ 20. Hence, we construct a complete reionization history of the Universe that matches the Thomson optical depths as measured by the WMAP satellite as well as the evolution of the Gunn-Peterson optical depth as seen in the absorption spectra of the highest redshift quasars. We find that even with conservative estimates for the impact of negative feedback mechanisms, primordial stellar sources contribute significantly to early reionization. Future observations of a Thomson optical depth of τ e ≥ 0.13 would bolster the claim for the existence of population III stars similar to the ones studied here.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/1d3ae50b256582cd6b5376f50a17f612f9a908bf

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Citations in the corpus

Probing reionization with Lyman α emission lines (2003, methodology): “Observations of the high-redshift ionizing background and numerical simulations led Miniati et al (2004) to conclude f esc 0.03 and Sokasian et al. (2003) to estimate f esc ∼ 0.15.”
THE SPECTRAL EVOLUTION OF THE FIRST GALAXIES. I. JAMES WEBB SPACE TELESCOPE DETECTION LIMITS AND COLOR CRITERIA FOR POPULATION III GALAXIES (2011, background): “…highly energetic radiation emitted from population III stars may have played an important role in the cosmic reionization at redshifts z > 6 (e.g. Sokasian et al. 2004; Trenti & Stiavelli 2009), and the remnants left behind by these objects may also have acted as seeds for the supermassive black…”
Multifrequency Analysis of 21 Centimeter Fluctuations from the Era of Reionization (2004, background): “Recently there has been a great deal of interest in the reionization of the intergalactic medium (Cen 2003; Chen et al. 2003; Cen & McDonald 2002; Gnedin 2004; Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Haiman & Holder 2003; Sokasian et al. 2003; Miralda-Escudé et al. 2000).”
Full-data Results of Hubble Frontier Fields: UV Luminosity Functions at z ∼ 6–10 and a Consistent Picture of Cosmic Reionization (2017, unknown): “The value of the clumping factor is not accurately known observationally, although many theoretical studies suggest similar values of clumping factor, CHII ∼ 1 − 6, in the epoch of reionization (Sokasian et al. 2003; Iliev et al. 2006; Finlator et al. 2012).”
21 Centimeter Fluctuations from Cosmic Gas at High Redshifts (2003, background): “…2003; Wyithe & Loeb 2003) lead to a behavior in which the volume fraction of ionized gas in the universe shows a complex dependence on redshift (e.g. Figures 8 & 9 of Sokasian et al. 2003b), unlike single episodes of reionization where the trend is simpler (e.g. Figure 5 of Sokasian et al. 2003a).”
Evolution of the Intergalactic Opacity: Implications for the Ionizing Background, Cosmic Star Formation, and Quasar Activity (2008, background): “This gives credibility to analytical and numerical calculations of hydrogen reionization that make this assumption (e.g., Sokasian et al. 2003b; Furlanetto et al. 2004; McQuinn et al. 2007b; Zahn et al. 2007).”
Early Reionization by Miniquasars (2003, background): “1 Haiman & Holder 2003; Sokasian et al. 2003; Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Somerville & Livio 2003).”
Simulations and Analytic Calculations of Bubble Growth during Hydrogen Reionization (2006, methodology): “These models are now widely used, and while elegant and inspired by previous small volume reionization simulations (Sokasian et al. 2003, 2004), they remain untested.”
Three-Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Implications for Cosmology (2006, unknown): “…physics of reionization has been a subject of extensive theoretical study (Cen 2003; Ciardi et al. 2003; Haiman & Holder 2003; Madau et al. 2004; Oh & Haiman 2003; Venkatesan et al. 2003; Ricotti & Ostriker 2004; Sokasian et al. 2004; Somerville & Livio 2003; Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Iliev et al. 2005).”
Efficient Simulations of Early Structure Formation and Reionization (2007, methodology): “The computational cost becomes truly prohibitive if hydrodynamics is included: the largest such simulation of reionization performed to date spanned only 10h−1 Mpc (Sokasian et al. 2003).”
THE GALAXY LUMINOSITY FUNCTION DURING THE REIONIZATION EPOCH (2010, background): “Are normal galaxies the agents of reionization, or are other sources responsible, such as Population III stars or Mini-QSOs (Madau et al. 2004; Sokasian et al. 2004; Shull & Venkatesan 2008)?”
Self-regulated reionization (2006, methodology): “Attempts to simulate reionization in a CDM universe this way include Ciardi et al. (2000); Nakamoto et al. (2001); Razoumovet al. (2002); Ciardi et al. (2003b); Sokasian et al. (2003); Ilievet al. (2006b); Mellema et al. (2006b).”
The birth of a galaxy – III. Propelling reionization with the faintest galaxies (2014, background): “…gradually coalesce, culminating in a fully ionized Universe by z ∼ 6 (e.g. Gnedin & Ostriker 1997; Razoumov et al. 2002; Ciardi, Ferrara & White 2003; Sokasian et al. 2003; Furlanetto, Zaldarriaga & Hernquist 2004; Iliev et al. 2006; Robertson et al. 2010; Trac & Gnedin 2011; Zahn et al. 2011; So…”
Studying reionization with Lyα emitters (2007, methodology): “We use an improved version of the Sokasian et al. (2001, 2003, 2004) and McQuinn et al. (2006) radiative transfer code.”
The End of the Reionization Epoch Probed by Lyα Emitters at z = 6.5 in the Subaru Deep Field (2006, background): “Such a picture is predicted by Sokasian et al. (2003) and Furlanetto et al. (2006).”