Analytical Models for the Energetics of Cosmic Accretion Shocks, Their Cosmological Evolution, and the Effect of Environment

We present an analytical description of the energetics of the population ofcosmic accretion shocks, for a concordance cosmology. We calculate how theshock-processed accretion power and mass current are distributed amongdifferent shock Mach numbers, and how they evolve with cosmic time. Wecalculate the cumulative energy input of cosmic accretion shocks of any Machnumber to the intergalactic medium as a function of redshift, and we compare itwith the energy output of supernova explosions as well as with the energy inputrequired to reionize the universe. In addition, we investigate and quantify theeffect of environmental factors, such as local clustering properties andfilament preheating on the statistical properties of these shocks. We find thatthe energy processed by accretion shocks is higher than the supernova energyoutput for z<3 and that it becomes more than an order of magnitude higher inthe local universe. The energy processed by accretion shocks alone becomescomparable to the energy required to reionize the universe by z~3.5. Finally,we establish both qualitative and quantitatively that both local clustering aswell as filament compression and preheating are important factors indetermining the statistical properties of the cosmic accretion shockpopulation.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, emulateap