The effect of early dark matter halos on reionization

Understand

The annihilation of dark matter particles releases energy, ionizing some of the gas in the Universe.

• We investigate the effect of dark matter halos on reionization.
• We show that the effect depends on the assumed density profile, the particle mass, and the assumed minimum halo mass.
• For NFW halos and typical WIMPs, we find the effect to be quite small.