An Effective Model for the Cosmic-Dawn 21-cm Signal

Abstract: The 21-cm signal holds the key to understanding the first structure formation during cosmic dawn. Theoretical progress over the last decade has focused on simulations of this signal, given the nonlinear and nonlocal relation between initial conditions and observables (21-cm or reionization maps). Here, instead, we propose an {\it effective} and fully analytic model for the 21-cm signal during cosmic dawn. We take advantage of the exponential-like behavior of the local star-formation rate density (SFRD) against densities at early times to analytically find its correlation functions including nonlinearities. The SFRD acts as the building block to obtain the statistics of radiative fields (X-ray and Lyman-$\alpha$ fluxes), and therefore the 21-cm signal. We implement this model as the public Python package Zeus21. This code can fully predict the 21-cm global signal and power spectrum in $\sim 1$ s, with negligible memory requirements. When comparing against state-of-the-art semi-numerical simulations from 21CMFAST we find agreement to $\sim10\%$ precision in both the 21-cm global signal and power spectra, after accounting for a (previously missed) underestimation of adiabatic fluctuations in 21CMFAST. Zeus21 is modular, allowing the user to vary the astrophysical model for the first galaxies, and interfaces with the cosmological code CLASS, which enables searches for beyond standard-model cosmology in 21-cm data. This represents a step towards bringing 21-cm to the era of precision cosmology.