Introducing SPHINX-MHD: the impact of primordial magnetic fields on the first galaxies, reionization, and the global 21-cm signal

Journal article

We present the first results from SPHINX-MHD, a suite of cosmological radiation-magnetohydrodynamics simulations designed to study the impact of primordial magnetic fields (PMFs) on galaxy formation and the evolution of the intergalactic medium during the epoch of reionization. The simulations are among the first to employ on-the-fly radiation transfer and constrained transport ideal MHD in a cosmological context to simultaneously model the inhomogeneous process of reionization and the growth of PMFs. We run a series of $(5{\rm Mpc})^3$ cosmological volumes, varying both the strength of the seed magnetic field and its spectral index. We find that PMFs with a spectral index ($n_B$) and a comoving amplitude ($B_0$) that have $n_B>-0.562\log_{10}(B_0/1{\rm n}G) - 3.35$ produce electron optical depths ($\tau_e$) that are inconsistent with CMB constraints due to the unrealistically early collapse of low-mass dwarf galaxies. For $n_B\geq-2.9$, our constraints are considerably tighter than the $\sim{\rm n}G$ constraints from Planck. PMFs that do not satisfy our constraints have little impact on the reionization history or the shape of the UV luminosity function. Likewise, detecting changes in the Ly$\alpha$ forest due to PMFs will be challenging because photoionisation and photoheating efficiently smooth the density field. However, we find that the first absorption feature in the global 21cm signal is a particularly sensitive indicator of the properties of the PMFs, even for those that satisfy our $\tau_e$ constraint. Furthermore, strong PMFs can increase the escape of LyC photons by up to 25% and shrink the effective radii of galaxies by 44% which could increase the completeness fraction of galaxy surveys. Finally, our simulations show that surveys with a magnitude limit of ${\rm M_{UV,1500{\rm A}}=-13}$ can probe the sources that provide the 50% of photons for reionization out to $z=12$.

Authors: Katz, H; Martin-Alvarez, S; Rosdahl, J; Kimm, T; Blaizot, J

• Publication status: Published
• Peer review status: Peer reviewed
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Journal: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
• Volume: 507
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 1254–1282
• Publication date: 2021-07-27
• Acceptance date: 2021-07-20
• DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stab2148
• EISSN: 1365-2966
• ISSN: 0035-8711
• Language: English
• Keywords: galaxies: high-redshift; H II regions; galaxies: ISM; galaxies: star formation, dark ages, reionization, first stars; FFR