RADIATIVE TRANSFER IN A CLUMPY UNIVERSE. IV. NEW SYNTHESIS MODELS OF THE COSMIC UV/X-RAY BACKGROUND

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We present improved synthesis models of the evolving spectrum of the UV/X-ray diffuse background, updating and extending our previous results. Five new main components are added to our radiative transfer code CUBA: (1) the sawtooth modulation of the background intensity from resonant line absorption in the Lyman series of cosmic hydrogen and helium; (2) the X-ray emission from obscured and unobscured quasars; (3) a piecewise parameterization of the distribution in redshift and column density of intergalactic absorbers that fits recent measurements of the mean free path of 1 ryd photons; (4) an accurate treatment of the photoionization structure of absorbers; and (5) the UV emission from star-forming galaxies at all redshifts. We provide tables of the predicted HI and HeII photoionization and photoheating rates for use, e.g., in cosmological hydrodynamics simulations of the Lya forest, and a new metallicity-dependent calibration to the UV luminosity density-star formation rate density relation. A "minimal cosmic reionization model" is also presented in which the galaxy UV emissivity traces recent determinations of the cosmic history of star formation, the luminosity-weighted escape fraction of hydrogen-ionizing radiation increases rapidly with lookback time, the clumping factor of the high-redshift intergalactic medium evolves following the results of recent hydrodynamic simulations, and Population III stars and miniquasars make a negligible contribution to the metagalactic flux. The model provides a good fit to the hydrogen-ionization rates inferred from flux decrement and proximity effect measurements, predicts that cosmological HII (HeIII) regions overlap at redshift 6.7 (2.8), and yields an optical depth to Thomson scattering that is in agreement with WMAP results. (Abridged)