The effect of helium reionization on the Lyman-alpha forest hydrogen flux statistics
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| Format: | Preprint |
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2024
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| author | Meiksin, Avery Puchwein, Ewald |
| author_facet | Meiksin, Avery Puchwein, Ewald |
| contents | We assess the impact of QSOs on the high redshift (z > 4) Intergalactic Medium using Monte Carlo realisations of QSO populations and the HeIII regions they generate, applied to the Sherwood-Relics simulations, allowing for uncertainties in the QSO luminosity function, its evolution, and QSO spectra and ages. While QSO luminosity functions based on optical-infrared selection are unable to reproduce the broadening HI Lyman-alpha optical depth distributions at z > 5, much broader distributions are found for the higher numbers of QSOs based on x-ray selection, suggesting a large QSO contribution to the ultra-violet background at z > 5 may offer an alternative to late reionization models to account for the broad HI Lyman-alpha optical depth distributions. Realisations using QSOs based on the higher QSO counts also much better recover the measured pixel flux auto-correlation function at z > 5. The HeIII regions from QSO sources according to both types of luminosity function suppress the pixel flux power spectrum on small scales, k > 0.02 s/km, while enhancing it on larger, both by amounts of up to tens of percent at z > 4, with the magnitude increasing with the intergalactic HeIII filling factor and the boost in temperature within the HeIII regions. |
| format | Preprint |
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arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2410_21023 |
| institution | arXiv |
| publishDate | 2024 |
| record_format | arxiv |
| spellingShingle | The effect of helium reionization on the Lyman-alpha forest hydrogen flux statistics Meiksin, Avery Puchwein, Ewald Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies We assess the impact of QSOs on the high redshift (z > 4) Intergalactic Medium using Monte Carlo realisations of QSO populations and the HeIII regions they generate, applied to the Sherwood-Relics simulations, allowing for uncertainties in the QSO luminosity function, its evolution, and QSO spectra and ages. While QSO luminosity functions based on optical-infrared selection are unable to reproduce the broadening HI Lyman-alpha optical depth distributions at z > 5, much broader distributions are found for the higher numbers of QSOs based on x-ray selection, suggesting a large QSO contribution to the ultra-violet background at z > 5 may offer an alternative to late reionization models to account for the broad HI Lyman-alpha optical depth distributions. Realisations using QSOs based on the higher QSO counts also much better recover the measured pixel flux auto-correlation function at z > 5. The HeIII regions from QSO sources according to both types of luminosity function suppress the pixel flux power spectrum on small scales, k > 0.02 s/km, while enhancing it on larger, both by amounts of up to tens of percent at z > 4, with the magnitude increasing with the intergalactic HeIII filling factor and the boost in temperature within the HeIII regions. |
| title | The effect of helium reionization on the Lyman-alpha forest hydrogen flux statistics |
| topic | Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics Astrophysics of Galaxies |
| url | https://arxiv.org/abs/2410.21023 |