{
  "abstract": "Understanding how galaxies and active galactic nuclei (AGN) jointly drive the reionization of the intergalactic medium (IGM) across cosmic time remains a major challenge in cosmology. We present Lumina, a large-volume radiation-hydrodynamic simulation that self-consistently follows the coupled evolution of the intergalactic medium, galaxies, and AGN through HI, HeI, and HeII reionization down to redshift $z=3$. Lumina evolves a cosmological volume of comoving side length $L_{\\mathrm{box}}=500\\,\\mathrm{cMpc}$ with $2\\times 6000^{3}$ resolution elements, corresponding to baryonic and dark-matter mass resolutions of $3.6\\times 10^{6}\\,\\text{M}_{\\odot}$ and $1.9\\times 10^{7}\\,\\text{M}_{\\odot}$, respectively. The simulation uses the moving-mesh code AREPO, combining the IllustrisTNG galaxy-formation model with a GPU-accelerated M1 radiation-transport solver in six frequency bins. The initial conditions employ separate transfer functions for baryons and dark matter and include their relative streaming velocity. Lumina predicts a late, predominantly stellar-driven hydrogen reionization, with the median sub-volume fully ionized by $z\\approx 5.2$ and residual neutral HI patches persisting until $z\\approx 4.75$. HeII reionization is driven self-consistently by AGN and is nearly complete by $z=3$. The simulation yields a Thomson-scattering optical depth in excellent agreement with Planck, an IGM thermal history and photoionization background broadly consistent with observational constraints, and a clear late-time thermal boost associated with HeII reionization. Its galaxy population remains consistent with the original IllustrisTNG project, while the larger volume improves statistics for rare objects, large-scale environments, and cosmic variance, enabling forward modelling of observables linking HI and HeII topologies to the evolving galaxy and AGN populations.",
  "abstract_shown": true,
  "affiliations": [],
  "article_type": "Journal reference: Mon Not R Astron Soc (2026)",
  "arxiv": "2605.15310",
  "author_total": 11,
  "authors": [
    {
      "name": "Oliver Zier"
    },
    {
      "name": "Aaron Smith"
    },
    {
      "name": "Xuejian Shen"
    },
    {
      "name": "Rongrong Liu"
    },
    {
      "name": "Rahul Kannan"
    },
    {
      "name": "Sonja M. Koehler"
    },
    {
      "name": "Volker Springel"
    },
    {
      "name": "Rüdiger Pakmor"
    },
    {
      "name": "Mark Vogelsberger"
    },
    {
      "name": "Teodora-Elena Bulichi"
    },
    {
      "name": "Lars Hernquist"
    }
  ],
  "bibtex": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0fn0pcvzzqr49.bib",
  "cited_by": 0,
  "doi": "10.48550/arxiv.2605.15310",
  "fulltext_url": null,
  "id": "0fn0pcvzzqr49",
  "issns": [],
  "landing_url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.15310",
  "language": null,
  "licence": "LicenseRef-arXiv-nonexclusive-1.0",
  "licence_label": "arXiv licence",
  "licence_source": "article",
  "licence_url": "http://arxiv.org/licenses/nonexclusive-distrib/1.0/",
  "metadata_licence": "CC0-1.0",
  "native_subjects": [
    [
      "arxiv",
      "astro-ph.CO"
    ],
    [
      "arxiv",
      "astro-ph.GA"
    ]
  ],
  "openalex": null,
  "pdf_url": "https://arxiv.org/pdf/2605.15310",
  "pmcid": null,
  "pmid": null,
  "published": "2026-08-03",
  "publisher": null,
  "ris": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0fn0pcvzzqr49.ris",
  "sources": [
    {
      "first_seen": "2026-11-04T15:21:24Z",
      "native_id": "2605.15310",
      "source": "arxiv",
      "url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/2605.15310"
    }
  ],
  "subjects": [
    {
      "field": "astronomy",
      "origin": "arxiv:astro-ph.CO",
      "subfield": "cosmology"
    },
    {
      "field": "astronomy",
      "origin": "arxiv:astro-ph.GA",
      "subfield": "galaxies"
    }
  ],
  "title": "Introducing the Lumina project: large-volume radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of the epochs of hydrogen and helium reionization",
  "title_text": "Introducing the Lumina project: large-volume radiation-hydrodynamic simulations of the epochs of hydrogen and helium reionization",
  "type": "preprint",
  "updated_at": "2026-11-06T18:21:01Z",
  "url": "https://research.draconitic.com/paper/0fn0pcvzzqr49",
  "venue": "arXiv",
  "versions": [
    {
      "doi": "10.1093/mnras/stag1469",
      "pid": null,
      "relation": "published-as",
      "title": null,
      "venue": null
    }
  ]
}