Lyman-alpha Heating of Inhomogeneous High-redshift Intergalactic Medium

Understand

The intergalactic medium (IGM) prior to the epoch of reionization consists mostly of neutral hydrogen gas.

• Ly-alpha photons produced by early stars resonantly scatter off hydrogen atoms, causing energy exchange between the radiation field and the gas.
• This interaction results in moderate heating of the gas due to the recoil of the atoms upon scattering, which is of great interest for future studies of the pre-reionization IGM in the HI 21 cm line.
• We investigate the effect of this Ly-alpha heating in the IGM with linear density, temperature, and velocity perturbations.