We use the Sherwood-Relics suite of hybrid hydrodynamical and radiative transfer simulations to model the effect of inhomogeneous reionisation on the 1D power spectrum of the Lyα forest transmitted flux at redshifts 4.2 ≤ z ≤ 5. Relative to models that assume a homogeneous UV background, reionisation suppresses the power spectrum at small scales, k ∼ 0.1 km−1 s, by ∼10 per cent because of spatial variations in the thermal broadening kernel and the divergent peculiar velocity field associated with over-pressurised intergalactic gas. On larger scales, $k<0.03\rm \, km^{-1}\, s$, the power spectrum is instead enhanced by 10–50 per cent by large scale spatial variations in the neutral hydrogen fraction. The effect of inhomogeneous reionisation must therefore be accounted for in analyses of forthcoming high precision measurements. We provide a correction for the Lyα forest power spectrum at 4.1 ≤ z ≤ 5.4 that can be easily applied within other parameter inference frameworks using similar reionisation models. We perform a Bayesian analysis of mock data to assess the extent of systematic biases that may arise in measurements of the intergalactic medium if ignoring this correction. At the scales probed by current high resolution Lyα forest data at z > 4, $0.006 \rm \, km^{-1}\, s\le k \le 0.2 \rm \, km^{-1}\, s$, we find inhomogeneous reionisation does not introduce any significant bias in thermal parameter recovery for the current measurement uncertainties of ∼10 per cent. However, for 5 per cent uncertainties, ∼1σ shifts between the estimated and true parameters occur.

We introduce the "Asymmetric Radiative Transfer In Shells Technique" (Artist), a new method for photon propagation on large scales that explicitly conserves photons, propagates photons at the speed of light, approximately accounts for photon directionality, and closely reproduces results of more detailed radiative transfer (RT) codes. Crucially, it is computationally fast enough to evolve the large cosmological volumes required to predict the 21cm power spectrum on scales that will be probed by future experiments targeting the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR). Most semi-numerical models aimed at predicting the EoR 21cm signal make use of an excursion set formalism (ESF) approach, which achieves computational viability by compromising on photon conservation, constraining ionised regions to be spherical by construction, and not accounting for light-travel time. By implementing our RT method within the semi-numerical code SimFast21, we show that Artist predicts a significantly different evolution for the EoR ionisation field compared to the code's native ESF. In particular, Artist predicts a more gradual evolution of the volume-averaged ionisation fraction, and up to an order-of-magnitude difference in the ionisation power, depending on the physical parameters assumed. Its application to large-scale EoR simulations will therefore allow more physically-motivated constraints to be obtained for key EoR parameters, such as the escape fraction. and moment-based methods, with different strengths and weaknesses, balancing accuracy versus computational efficiency (Trac & Gnedin 2011). Often, while these methods can be made optimally accurate with sufficient computational investment, they remain computationally prohibitive in large-scale cosmological simulations that seek to reproduce the evolution of the universe on at least tens of Mpc scales, while simultaneously ensuring that the injection and propagation of photons on the smallest scales is both accurate and self-consistent.One particular such case, currently at the forefront of astrophysical research, is the modelling of the last global phase-change in the history of the universe -the epoch of reionisation (EoR). The sources of the photons respon-

We predict a thin diffuse component of the Galactic Ridge X-ray emission (GRXE) arising from the scattering of the radiation of bright X-ray binaries (XBs) by the interstellar medium. This scattered component has the same scale height as that of the gaseous disk (∼ 80 pc) and is therefore thinner than the GRXE of stellar origin (scale height ∼ 130 pc). The morphology of the scattered component is furthermore expected to trace the clumpy molecular and HI clouds. We calculate this contribution to the GRXE from known Galactic XBs assuming that they are all persistent. The known XBs sample is incomplete, however, because it is flux limited and spans the lifetime of X-ray astronomy (∼ 50 years), which is very short compared with the characteristic time of 1000-10000 years that would have contributed to the diffuse emission observed today due to time delays. We therefore also use a simulated sample of sources, to estimate the diffuse emission we should expect in an optimistic case assuming that the X-ray luminosity of our Galaxy is on average similar to that of other galaxies. In the calculations we also take into account the enhancement of the total scattering cross-section due to coherence effects in the elastic scattering from multi-electron atoms and molecules. This scattered emission can be distinguished from the contribution of low X-ray luminosity stars by the presence of narrow fluorescent K-α lines of Fe, Si, and other abundant elements present in the interstellar medium and by directly resolving the contribution of low X-ray luminosity stars. We find that within 1• latitude of the Galactic plane the scattered emission contributes on average 10 − 30% of the GRXE flux in the case of known sources and over 50% in the case of simulated sources. In the latter case, the scattered component is found to even dominate the stellar emission in certain parts of the Galactic plane. X-rays with energies 1 keV from XBs should also penetrate deep inside the HI and molecular clouds, where they are absorbed and heat the interstellar medium. We find that this heating rate dominates the heating by cosmic rays (assuming a solar neighborhood energy density) in a considerable part of the Galaxy.

We introduce a new method for probing global properties of clump populations in giant molecular clouds (GMCs) in the case where these act as X-ray reflection nebulae (XRNe), based on the study of the clumping's overall effect on the reflected X-ray signal, in particular on the Fe K-α line's shoulder. We consider the particular case of Sgr B2, one of the brightest and most massive XRN in the Galactic center (GC) region. We parametrise the gas distribution inside the cloud using a simple clumping model with the slope of the clump mass function (α), the minimum clump mass (m min ), the fraction of the cloud's mass contained in clumps ( f DGMF ), and the mass-size relation of individual clumps as free parameters, and investigate how these affect the reflected X-ray spectrum. In the case of very dense clumps, similar to those presently observed in Sgr B2, these occupy a small volume of the cloud and present a small projected area to the incoming X-ray radiation. We find that these contribute negligibly to the scattered X-rays. Clump populations with volume-filling factors of >10 −3 do leave observational signatures, that are sensitive to the clump model parameters, in the reflected spectrum and polarisation. Future high angular resolution X-ray observations could therefore complement the traditional optical and radio observations of these GMCs, and prove to be a powerful probe in the study of their internal structure. Clumps in GMCs should further be visible both as bright spots and regions of heavy absorption in high resolution X-ray observations. We therefore also study the time-evolution of the X-ray morphology, under illumination by a transient source, as a probe of the 3D distribution and column density of individual clumps by future X-ray observatories.

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