The imprint of inhomogeneous HeII reionization on the HI and HeII Ly-alpha forest

Understand

We use a set of AMR hydrodynamic simulations post-processed with the radiative-transfer code RADAMESH to study how inhomogeneous HeII reionization affects the intergalactic medium (IGM).

• We propagate radiation from active galactic nuclei (AGNs) considering two scenarios for the time evolution of the ionizing sources.
• We find that HeII reionization takes place in a very inhomogeneous fashion, through the production of well separated bubbles of the ionized phase that subsequently percolate.
• Overall, the reionization process is extended in time and lasts for a redshift interval Delta z>1.