Related papers: Heating the IGM by X-rays from Population III Bina…
By heating the intergalactic medium (IGM) before reionization, X-rays are expected to play a prominent role in the early Universe. The cosmic 21-cm signal from this "Epoch of Heating" (EoH) could serve as a clean probe of high-energy…
A definite prediction from recent N-body/hydro simulations of the structure formation of the universe is the presence of a diffuse intergalactic medium (IGM) in a temperature range of 10^5 - 10^7 K. This hot phase of the IGM may account for…
The 21-cm signal from the cosmic reionization epoch can shed light on the history of heating of the primordial intergalactic medium (IGM) at z~30-10. It has been suggested that X-rays from the first accreting black holes could significantly…
Observations of the Ly-alpha forest at z~3 reveal an average metallicity Z~0.01 Z_solar. The high-redshift supernovae that polluted the IGM also accelerated relativistic electrons. Since the energy density of the CMB scales as (1+z)^4, at…
The first population of X-ray binaries (XRBs) is expected to affect the thermal and ionization states of the gas in the early Universe. Although these X-ray sources are predicted to have important implications for high-redshift observable…
We develop a coupled model for the evolution of the global properties of the intergalactic medium (IGM) and the formation of galaxies, in the presence of a photoionizing background due to stars and quasars. We use this model to predict the…
An X-ray background in the early Universe enhances molecular hydrogen formation, the main coolant of primordial gas, thereby lowering the threshold for Pop III star formation. Continuing our series on X-ray impacts on Pop III star…
We present a detailed analysis of the ionization and thermal structure of the intergalactic medium (IGM) around a high-redshift QSO using a large suite of cosmological, multi-frequency radiative transfer (RT) simulations, exploring the…
The critical star formation rate density required to keep the intergalactic hydrogen ionised depends crucially on the average rate of recombinations in the intergalactic medium (IGM). This rate is proportional to the clumping factor C =…
Theoretical models of structure formation predict the presence of a hot gaseous atmosphere around galaxies. While this hot circum-galactic medium (CGM) has been observationally confirmed through UV absorption lines, the detection of its…
We use cosmological simulations to study the X-ray ionisation and heating of the intergalactic medium by an early population of accreting black holes. By considering observational constraints from the X-ray background, we find an upper…
Little is currently known about the physical properties of the hot circumgalactic medium (CGM) surrounding massive galaxies. Next-generation X-ray observatories will enable detailed studies of the hot CGM in emission. To support these…
We explore the formation of massive high-redshift Population III (Pop III) galaxies through photoionization feedback. We consider dark matter halos formed from progenitors that have undergone no star formation as a result of early…
We study the heating of the intergalactic medium (IGM) surrounding high redshift star forming galaxies due to cosmic rays (CR). We take into account the diffusion of low energy cosmic rays and study the patchiness of the resulting heating.…
High-energy emission associated with star formation has been proposed as a significant source of interstellar medium (ISM) ionization in low-metallicity starbursts and an important contributor to the heating of the intergalactic medium…
A self-consistent formalism to jointly study cosmic reionization and thermal history of the IGM is presented. The model implements most of the relevant physics governing these processes, such as the inhomogeneous IGM density distribution,…
We investigate the impact of a cosmic X-ray background (CXB) on Population III stars forming in a minihalo at $z\simeq25$. Using the smoothed particle hydrodynamics code GADGET-2, we attain sufficient numerical resolution to follow gas…
[abridged] With their long mean free paths and efficient heating of the intergalactic medium (IGM), X-rays could have a dramatic impact on the thermal and ionization history of the Universe. We explore this in various signals: (i)…
We utilize cosmological hydrodynamic simulations to study the formation of Population III (Pop III) stars in dark matter halos exposed to strong ionizing radiation. We simulate the formation of three halos subjected to a wide range of…
We present constraints on both the kinetic temperature of the intergalactic medium (IGM) at z=8.4, and on models for heating the IGM at high-redshift with X-ray emission from the first collapsed objects. These constraints are derived using…