Journal
MONTHLY NOTICES OF THE ROYAL ASTRONOMICAL SOCIETY
Volume 412, Issue 1, Pages L16-L19Publisher
OXFORD UNIV PRESS
DOI: 10.1111/j.1745-3933.2010.00993.x
Keywords
radiative transfer; methods: numerical; cosmology: dark ages, reionization, first stars
Categories
Funding
- Microsoft Research Cambridge
- Science and Technology Facilities Council [ST/F002289/1, ST/H008519/1] Funding Source: researchfish
- STFC [ST/H008519/1, ST/F002289/1] Funding Source: UKRI
Ask authors/readers for more resources
An ionization front expanding into a neutral medium can be slowed down significantly by recombinations. In cosmological numerical simulations the recombination rate is often computed using a 'clumping factor' that takes into account that not all scales in the simulated density field are resolved. Here we demonstrate that using a single value of the clumping factor significantly overestimates the recombination rate, and how a local estimate of the clumping factor is both easy to compute, and gives significantly better numerical convergence. We argue that this lower value of the recombination rate is more relevant during the reionization process and hence that the importance of recombinations during reionization has been overestimated.
Authors
I am an author on this paper
Click your name to claim this paper and add it to your profile.
Reviews
Recommended
No Data Available