2002•The Astrophysical JournalOpen access

Effective Screening Due to Minihalos during the Epoch of Reionization

Rennan Barkana, Abraham Loeb

Abstract

We show that the gaseous halos of collapsed objects introduce a substantial cumulative opacity to ionizing radiation, even after the smoothly distributed hydrogen in the intergalactic medium has been fully reionized. This opacity causes a delay of Δ z ≳ 1 in redshift between the time of the overlap of ionized bubbles in the intergalactic medium and the lifting of complete Gunn-Peterson Lyα absorption. The minihalos responsible for this screening effect are not resolved by existing numerical simulations of reionization.

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Key concepts: Reionization, Intergalactic medium, Opacity, Physics, Halo, Astrophysics, Redshift, Intergalactic travel