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Semi-Numerical Simulation of Reionization with Semi-Analytical Modeling of Galaxy Formation
In a semi-numerical model of reionization, the evolution of ionization
fraction is simulated approximately by the ionizing photon to baryon ratio
criterion. In this paper we incorporate a semi-analytical model of galaxy
formation based on the Millennium II N-body simulation into the semi-numerical
modeling of reionization. The semi-analytical model is used to predict the
production of ionizing photons, then we use the semi-numerical method to model
the reionization process. Such an approach allows more detailed modeling of the
reionization, and also connects observations of galaxies at low and high
redshifts to the reionization history. The galaxy formation model we use was
designed to match the low- observations, and it also fits the high redshift
luminosity function reasonably well, but its prediction on the star formation
falls below the observed value, and we find that it also underpredicts the
stellar ionizing photon production rate, hence the reionization can not be
completed at without taking into account some other potential
sources of ionization photons. We also considered simple modifications of the
model with more top heavy initial mass functions (IMF), with which the
reionization can occur at earlier epochs. The incorporation of the
semi-analytical model may also affect the topology of the HI regions during the
EoR, and the neutral regions produced by our simulations with the
semi-analytical model appeared less poriferous than the simple halo-based
models.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, RAA accepte
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