21cmfast: a fast, seminumerical simulation of the high-redshift 21-cm signal

Abstract

We introduce a powerful seminumeric modelling tool, 21CMFAST, designed to efficiently simulate the cosmological 21-cm signal. Our code generates 3D realizations of evolved density, ionization, peculiar velocity and spin temperature fields, which it then combines to compute the 21-cm brightness temperature. Although the physical processes are treated with approximate methods, we compare our results to a state-of-the-art large-scale hydrodynamic simulation, and find good agreement on scales pertinent to the upcoming observations ( 1 Mpc). The power spectra from 21CMFAST agree with those generated from the numerical simulation to within 10s of per cent, down to the Nyquist frequency. We show results from a 1-Gpc simulation which tracks the cosmic 21-cm signal down from z = 250, highlighting the various interesting epochs. Depending on the desired resolution, 21CMFAST can compute a redshift realization on a single processor in just a few minutes. Our code is fast, efficient, customizable and publicly available, making it a useful tool for 21-cm parameter studies.