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An important characteristic of cosmic reionization is the growth of ionizedgas bubbles surrounding early luminous objects. Understanding the connectionsbetween the formation and coalescence of these bubbles and their originatingastrophysical sources is equally critical. We present results from a study ofbubble sizes using the state-of-the-art THESAN radiation-hydrodynamicssimulation suite, which self-consistently models radiation transport andrealistic galaxy formation. We employ the mean-free path method, and track theevolution of the effective ionized bubble size at each point ($R_{\rm eff}$)throughout the Epoch of Reionization. We show there is a slow growth period forregions ionized early, but a rapid flash ionization process for regions ionizedlater as they immediately enter a large, pre-existing bubble. We also find thatbright sources are preferentially in larger bubbles, and find consistency withrecent observational constraints at $z \gtrsim 9$, but tension with idealizedLyman-alpha damping-wing models at $z \approx 7$ when the size distribution iscomplex. We find that high overdensity regions have larger characteristicbubble sizes, but the correlation decreases as reionization progresses, likelydue to the runaway formation of large percolated bubbles. Finally, we comparethe redshift at which a region transitions from neutral to ionized ($z_{\rmreion}$) with the time it takes to reach a given bubble size and conclude that$z_{\rm reion}$ is a reasonable local probe of small-scale bubble sizestatistics ($R_\text{eff} \lesssim 1$ cMpc). However, for larger bubbles, thecorrespondence between $z_{\rm reion}$ and size statistics weakens due to thetime delay between the onset of reionization and the expansion of a largebubble, particularly at high redshifts.

The THESAN project: connecting ionized bubble sizes to their local environments during the Epoch of Reionization