New Paper: Early X-ray Background

About a month ago, we submitted a new paper on the build-up of the X-ray radiation background. Here we used the Renaissance Simulations to estimate the number density of high-mass X-ray binaries from the first metal-free (Population III) stars. We found that these binaries produce about 6 eV of energy in the X-rays per hydrogen atom, potentially pre-heating the intergalactic medium to about 1000 K. These effects are important to consider when deciphering future 21-cm observations of the early universe that can tell us the last cosmic phase transition, reionization.

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