  The annihilation of dark matter particles releases energy, ionizing some of
the gas in the Universe. We investigate the effect of dark matter halos on
reionization. We show that the effect depends on the assumed density profile,
the particle mass, and the assumed minimum halo mass. For NFW halos and typical
WIMPs, we find the effect to be quite small. However, light dark matter
candidates in the MeV range can contribute significantly to reionization and
can make an important contribution to the measured optical depth. This effect
may be used to constrain light dark matter models. We also study the effect of
varying the halo density profile on reionization.
