Study of systematics effects on the Cross Power Spectrum of 21 cm Line and Cosmic Microwave Background using Murchison Widefield Array Data

Observation of the 21cm line signal from neutral hydrogen during the Epoch of Reionization is challenging due to extremely bright Galactic and extragalactic foregrounds and complicated instrumental calibration. A reasonable approach for mitigating these problems is the cross correlation with other observables. In this work, we present the first results of the cross power spectrum (CPS) between radio images observed by the Murchison Widefield Array and the cosmic microwave background (CMB), measured by the Planck experiment. We study the systematics due to the ionospheric activity, the dependence of CPS on group of pointings, and frequency. The resulting CPS is consistent with zero because the error is dominated by the foregrounds in the 21cm observation. Additionally, the variance of the signal indicates the presence of unexpected systematics error at small scales. Furthermore, we reduce the error by one order of magnitude with application of a foreground removal using a polynomial fitting method. Based on the results, we find that the detection of the 21cm-CMB CPS with the MWA Phase I requires more than 99.95% of the foreground signal removed, 2000 hours of deep observation and 50% of the sky fraction coverage.Comment: 15 pages, 16 figures, accepted to MNRA

Constraints on the Evolution of the Primordial Magnetic Field from the Small-Scale Cosmic Microwave Background Angular Anisotropy

Recent observations of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) have extended the measured power spectrum to higher multipoles $l\gtrsim$1000, and there appears to be possible evidence for excess power on small angular scales. The primordial magnetic field (PMF) can strongly affect the CMB power spectrum and the formation of large scale structure. In this paper, we calculate the CMB temperature anisotropies generated by including a power-law magnetic field at the photon last-scattering surface (PLSS). We then deduce an upper limit on the PMF based on our theoretical analysis of the power excess on small angular scales. We have taken into account several important effects such as the modified matter sound speed in the presence of a magnetic field. An upper limit to the field strength of $|B_\lambda|\lesssim$ 4.7 nG at the present scale of 1 Mpc is deduced. This is obtained by comparing the calculated theoretical result including the Sunyaev-Zeldovich (SZ) effect with recent observed data on the small-scale CMB anisotropies from the $Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe$ (WMAP), the Cosmic Background Imager (CBI), and the Arcminute Cosmology Bolometer Array Receiver (ACBAR). We discuss several possible mechanisms for the generation and evolution of the PMF.Comment: 27 pages, 4 figures, accepted to ApJ April 10, 200

Probing the Nature of the Weakest Intergalactic Magnetic Fields with the High Energy Emission of Gamma-Ray Bursts

We investigate the delayed, secondary GeV-TeV emission of gamma-ray bursts and its potential to probe the nature of intergalactic magnetic fields. Geometrical effects are properly taken into account for the time delay between primary high energy photons and secondary inverse Compton photons from electron-positron pairs, which are produced in $\gamma$-$\gamma$ interactions with background radiation fields and deflected by intervening magnetic fields. The time-dependent spectra of the delayed emission are evaluated for a wide range of magnetic field strengths and redshifts. The typical flux and delay time of secondary photons from bursts at $z \sim 1$ are respectively $\sim 10^{-8}$ GeV cm$^{-2}$ s$^{-1}$ and $\sim 10^4$ s if the field strengths are $\sim 10^{-18}$ G, as might be the case in intergalactic void regions. We find crucial differences between the cases of coherent and tangled magnetic fields, as well as dependences on the field coherence length.Comment: 19 pages, 9 figures, formulation revised, accepted for publication in Ap

Constraining the Primordial Magnetic Field from Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies at Higher Multipoles

The cosmological magnetic field is one of the important physical quantities which affect strongly the cosmic microwave background (CMB) power spectrum. Recent CMB observations have been extended to higher multipoles $l\gtrsim$1000, and they resultantly exhibit an excess power than the standard model prediction in cosmological theory which best fits the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data at lower multipoles $l\lesssim$900. We calculate the CMB temperature anisotropies generated by the power-law magnetic field at the last scattering surface (LSS) in order to remove the tension between theory and observation at higher multipoles and also place an upper limit on primordial magnetic field. In our present calculation we take account of the effect of ionization ratio exactly without approximation. This effect is very crucial to precisely estimate the effect of the magnetic field on CMB power spectrum. We consider both effects of the scalar and vector modes of magnetic field on the CMB anisotropies, where current data are known to be insensitive to the tensor mode which we ignore in the present study. In order to constrain the primordial magnetic field, we evaluate likelihood function of the WMAP data in a wide range of parameters of the magnetic field strength $|\mathbf{B}|_\lambda$ and the power-law spectral index $n$, along with six cosmological parameters in flat Universe models, using the technique of the Markov Chain Monte Carlo(MCMC) method. We find that the upper limit at $2\sigma$ C.L. turns out to be $|\mathbf{B}_\lambda|\lesssim 3.9$nG at 1 Mpc for any $n_B$ values, which is obtained by comparing the calculated result including the Sunyaev-Zeldovich(SZ) effect with recent WMAP data of the CMB anisotropies.Comment: 10 pages, 1 figures, 1 table, accepted to ApJ Letter April 13, 200

A Simulation Method to Resolve Hydrodynamic Interactions in Colloidal Dispersions

A new computational method is presented to resolve hydrodynamic interactions acting on solid particles immersed in incompressible host fluids. In this method, boundaries between solid particles and host fluids are replaced with a continuous interface by assuming a smoothed profile. This enabled us to calculate hydrodynamic interactions both efficiently and accurately, without neglecting many-body interactions. The validity of the method was tested by calculating the drag force acting on a single cylindrical rod moving in an incompressible Newtonian fluid. This method was then applied in order to simulate sedimentation process of colloidal dispersions.Comment: 7pages, 7 figure