Acknowledging

If you use 21cmFAST v3+ in your research please cite both of:

Murray et al., (2020). 21cmFAST v3: A Python-integrated C code for generating 3D realizations of the cosmic 21cm signal. Journal of Open Source Software, 5(54), 2582, https://doi.org/10.21105/joss.02582

Andrei Mesinger, Steven Furlanetto and Renyue Cen, “21CMFAST: a fast, seminumerical simulation of the high-redshift 21-cm signal”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 411, Issue 2, pp. 955-972 (2011), https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/link_gateway/2011MNRAS.411..955M/doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2010.17731.x

In addition, the following papers introduce various features into 21cmFAST. If you use these features, please cite the relevant papers.

Lyman alpha multiple scattering

Flitter, J., Munoz, J. B., Mesinger, A., “Semi-analytical approach to Lyman-alpha multiple-scattering in 21-cm signal simulations”, Physical Review D, vol. 113, no. 10, 103552, 2026, https://doi.org/10.1103/5r5v-nk5j.

Discrete Halo Sampler / version 4:

Davies, J. E., Mesinger, A., Murray, S. G., “Efficient simulation of discrete galaxy populations and associated radiation fields during the first billion years”, Astronomy and Astrophysics, vol. 701, A. 236, 2025. https://doi.org/10.1051/0004-6361/202554951.

Photon non-conservation correction:

Park, J., Greig, B., Mesinger, A., “Calibrating excursion set reionization models to approximately conserve ionizing photons”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 517, no. 1, pp 192-200, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac2756.

Mini-halos:

Muñoz, J.B., Qin, Y., Mesinger, A., Murray, S., Greig, B., and Mason, C., “The Impact of the First Galaxies on Cosmic Dawn and Reionization”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 511, no. 3, pp 3657-3681, 2022 https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stac185 (for DM-baryon relative velocities)

Qin, Y., Mesinger, A., Park, J., Greig, B., and Muñoz, J. B., “A tale of two sites - I. Inferring the properties of minihalo-hosted galaxies from current observations”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 495, no. 1, pp. 123–140, 2020. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/staa1131. (for Lyman-Werner and first implementation)

Mass-dependent ionizing efficiency:

Park, J., Mesinger, A., Greig, B., and Gillet, N., “Inferring the astrophysics of reionization and cosmic dawn from galaxy luminosity functions and the 21-cm signal”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 484, no. 1, pp. 933–949, 2019. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stz032.

Lightcone and redshift space distortions:

Greig, B., Mesinger, A., “21CMMC with a 3D light-cone: the impact of the co-evolution approximation on the astrophysics of reionisation and cosmic dawn.”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 477, no. 3, pp 3217-3229, 2018. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/sty796.

Inhomogeneous recombination:

Sobacchi, E., Mesinger, A., “Inhomogeneous recombinations during cosmic reionization”, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, vol. 440, no. 2, pp 1662-1673, 2014. https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stu377.

If you are unsure which modules are used within your simulations, we provide a handy function to print out which works to refer py21cmfast.utils.show_references, which accepts a single instance of the InputParameters class and shows which papers are relevant for your simulation.