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The Sherwood-Relics simulations: overview and impact of patchy reionization and pressure smoothing on the intergalactic medium

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arxiv 2207.13098 v2 pith:7YRZRFJW submitted 2022-07-26 astro-ph.CO

classification astro-ph.CO
keywords reionizationsimulationscosmicfluctuationsforestlargelyman-alphapatchy
verification ladder T0 review T1 audit T2 compute T3 formal
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We present the Sherwood-Relics simulations, a new suite of large cosmological hydrodynamical simulations aimed at modelling the intergalactic medium (IGM) during and after the cosmic reionization of hydrogen. The suite consists of over 200 simulations that cover a wide range of astrophysical and cosmological parameters. It also includes simulations that use a new lightweight hybrid scheme for treating radiative transfer effects. This scheme follows the spatial variations in the ionizing radiation field, as well as the associated fluctuations in IGM temperature and pressure smoothing. It is computationally much cheaper than full radiation hydrodynamics simulations and circumvents the difficult task of calibrating a galaxy formation model to observational constraints on cosmic reionization. Using this hybrid technique, we study the spatial fluctuations in IGM properties that are seeded by patchy cosmic reionization. We investigate the relevant physical processes and assess their impact on the z > 4 Lyman-alpha forest. Our main findings are: (i) Consistent with previous studies patchy reionization causes large scale temperature fluctuations that persist well after the end of reionization, (ii) these increase the Lyman-alpha forest flux power spectrum on large scales, and (iii) result in a spatially varying pressure smoothing that correlates well with the local reionization redshift. (iv) Structures evaporated or puffed up by photoheating cause notable features in the Lyman-alpha forest, such as flat-bottom or double-dip absorption profiles.

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Cited by 7 Pith papers

Reviewed papers in the Pith corpus that reference this work. Sorted by Pith novelty score. Full citation record

  1. Forest without Trees is still Fruitful: Constraints on the thermal state of the neutral IGM at $z\approx5.6$ with the 21-cm forest power spectrum

    astro-ph.CO 2026-07 conditional novelty 7.0 of 10

    A null detection of the 21-cm forest toward quasar J352–15 at z≈5.8 disfavors very cold and substantially neutral intergalactic gas, giving the first observational constraints from a 21-cm forest power spectrum.

  2. No way ou$\tau$: Epoch of Reionization Observations Do not Support Large Values of the Optical Depth to Reionization

    astro-ph.CO 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Epoch-of-reionization hydrogen probes, combined with CMB and BAO data but no CMB polarization, yield tau_reio = 0.067 +/- 0.011 and leave the dynamical-dark-energy preference at ~2 sigma.

  3. Ringing of the Reionization: A first direct measurement of the intergalactic pressure smoothing scale at redshift z>4.2 as imprinted onto small-scale peculiar velocities in the Lyman-alpha forest

    astro-ph.CO 2026-07 reject novelty 6.0 of 10

    A claimed first direct measurement of the IGM pressure smoothing scale at z≈4.2–5.0 from a fitted peak in the Lyman-alpha flux power spectrum, tied to an acoustic feature in the peculiar velocity gradient.

  4. High resolution Lyman-{\alpha} forest constraints on dark matter-neutrino scattering

    astro-ph.CO 2026-07 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    The Lyman-alpha forest constrains dark matter-neutrino scattering to u_nu_chi < 1.5e-8 (95% C.L.), excluding previously claimed hints of a non-zero interaction.

  5. Cosmological Concordance in an Especially Opaque Universe: A Tentative Cosmological Detection of Physical Neutrino Mass in $\Lambda$CDM

    astro-ph.CO 2026-06 reject novelty 6.0 of 10

    Imposing a high prior on τ = 0.11 ± 0.006 produces a 2σ positive neutrino mass sum of 0.10 eV and restores concordance between CMB and DESI data inside ΛCDM.

  6. An emulator for the ionizing photon mean free path in ultra-high resolution simulations: the implications of mean free path measurements for the reionization history

    astro-ph.CO 2026-02 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    Photon mean-free-path observations at z≈5–6, interpreted with a neural-network emulator of high-resolution radiative-transfer simulations, favor a late, extended reionization with substantial neutral hydrogen persisti...

  7. 3D matter power spectrum correspondence to 1D Lyman-alpha flux power spectrum

    astro-ph.CO 2025-05 conditional novelty 6.0 of 10

    A phenomenological recipe maps 3D matter power to 1D Lyman-alpha flux power, adds warm dark matter and pressure cutoffs in quadrature, and matches simulations to within 5-20%.

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