The Intergalactic MediumΒΆ
We’ve seen so far that you can initialize stellar and BH populations and
radiation backgrounds independently, i.e., without doing a full blown
21-cm calculation. However,
the radiation background will in general modify the
properties of the intergalactic medium, which will then influence the subsequent
evolution of the radiation background (and so on). Coupling radiation from
stars and BHs to the IGM requires use of the ares.solvers.IntergalacticMedium
module:
import ares
igm = ares.solvers.IGM()
# Optical depth between 10 <= z <= 12 at 500 eV.
# By default, assumes IGM is neutral
tau_neutral = igm.OpticalDepth(10, 12, 500)
# Can supply ionized fraction as constant
tau_xconst = igm.OpticalDepth(10, 12, 500, xavg=0.5)