Impact of Self-shielding Minihalos on the Ly$\alpha$ Forest at High Redshift

Understand

Dense gas in minihalos with masses of $10^6-10^8~M_\odot$ can shield themselves from reionization for $\sim100$ Myr after being exposed to the UV background.

• These self-shielded systems, often unresolved in cosmological simulations, can introduce strong absorption in quasar spectra.
• This paper is the first systematic study on the impact of these systems on the Ly$\alpha$ forest.
• We first derive the HI column density profile of photoevaporating minihalos by conducting 1D radiation-hydrodynamics simulations.