The early reionization with the primordial magnetic fields

The early reionization of the intergalactic medium, which is favored from the WMAP temperature-polarization cross-correlations, contests the validity of the standard scenario of structure formation in the cold dark matter cosmogony. It is difficult to achieve early enough star formation without rather extreme assumptions such as very high escape fraction of ionizing photons from proto-galaxies or a top-heavy initial mass function. Here we propose an alternative scenario that is additional fluctuations on small scales induced by primordial magnetic fields trigger the early structure formation. We found that ionizing photons from Population III stars formed in dark haloes can easily reionize the universe by $z \simeq 15$ if the strength of primordial magnetic fields is larger than $0.6 \times 10^{-9}$Gauss.Comment: 8 pages, 5 figures. accepted for publication in MNRA

Cosmological production of H_2 before the formation of the first galaxies

Previous calculations of the pregalactic chemistry have found that a small amount of H_2, x[H_2]=n[H_2]/n[H] = 2.6e-6, is produced catalytically through the H^-, H_2^+, and HeH^+ mechanisms. We revisit this standard calculation taking into account the effects of the nonthermal radiation background produced by cosmic hydrogen recombination, which is particularly effective at destroying H^- via photodetachment. We also take into consideration the non-equilibrium level populations of H_2^+, which occur since transitions among the rotational-vibrational levels are slow compared to photodissociation. The new calculation predicts a final H_2 abundance of x[H_2] = 6e-7 for the standard cosmology. This production is due almost entirely to the H^- mechanism, with ~1 per cent coming from HeH^+ and ~0.004 per cent from H_2^+. We evaluate the heating of the diffuse pregalactic gas from the chemical reactions that produce H_2 and from rotational transitions in H_2, and find them to be negligible.Comment: 13 pages, 5 figures, MNRAS submitte

Probing the Magnetic Field Structure in Gamma-Ray Bursts through Dispersive Plasma Effects on the Afterglow Polarization

(Abr) The origin and structure of magnetic fields in Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) fireball plasmas are two of the most important open questions in all GRB models. We show that the structure and strength of the magnetic field may be constrained by radio and IR observations of the early afterglow, where plasma effects on the polarization of propagating radiation are significant. We calculate these propagation effects for cold and relativistic plasmas, and find that in the presence of a uniform equipartition field the degree of linear polarization is suppressed, and circular polarization prevails at low frequencies, nu < 1-3 GHz, (2x10^11 Hz < nu < few x 10^14 Hz) in the forward (reverse) shock. At higher frequencies linear polarization dominates. At the frequency of the transition between circular and linear polarization, the net level of polarization is minimal, ~10-20%. These features are nearly independent of the circumburst density. The transition frequency is smaller by a factor of ~10 when the uniform field is much weaker than equipartition. The dependence of these results on viewing geometry, outflow collimation and magnetic field orientation is discussed. When the configuration of the field is entangled over length scales much smaller than the extent of the emitting plasma, the aforementioned effects should not be observed and a linear polarization at the few % level is expected. Polarimetric observations during the early afterglow, and particularly of the reverse shock emission, may therefore place strong constraints on the structure and strength of the magnetic field within the fireball plasma.Comment: 12 pages, 6 figures. Accepted for publication in ApJ. Revised version includes improved discussion of viewing and fireball geometry, with implications to resulting polarizatio

Resolving Gamma-Ray Burst 000301C with a Gravitational Microlens

The afterglow of the Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB) 000301C exhibited achromatic, short time-scale variability that is difficult to reconcile with the standard relativistic shock model. We interpret the observed light curves as a microlensing event superimposed on power-law flux decays typical of afterglows. In general, a relativistic GRB shock appears on the sky as a thin ring expanding at a superluminal speed. Initially the ring is small relative to its angular separation from the lens and so its flux is magnified by a constant factor. As the ring grows and sweeps across the lens its magnification reaches a maximum. Subsequently, the flux gradually recovers its unlensed value. This behavior involves only three free parameters in its simplest formulation and was predicted theoretically by Loeb & Perna (1998). Fitting the available R-band photometric data of GRB 000301C to a simple model of the microlensing event and a broken power-law for the afterglow, we find reasonable values for all the parameters and a reduced chi^2/DOF parameter of 1.48 compared with 2.99 for the broken power-law fit alone. The peak magnification of ~2 occurred 3.8 days after the burst. The entire optical-IR data imply a width of the GRB ring of order 10% of its radius, similar to theoretical expectations. The angular resolution provided by microlensing is better than a micro-arcsecond. We infer a mass of approximately 0.5 M_Sun for a lens located half way to the source at z_s=2.04. A galaxy 2'' from GRB 000301C might be the host of the stellar lens, but current data provides only an upper-limit on its surface brightness at the GRB position.Comment: to appear in the ApJ Letters, 13 pages, 3 figures (one additional figure included); all data used for the fits available at ftp://cfa-ftp.harvard.edu/pub/kstanek/GRB000301C/ and through WWW at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/cfa/oir/Research/GRB

Probing Primordial Magnetic Fields with the 21cm Fluctuations

Primordial magnetic fields possibly generated in the very early universe are one of the candidates for the origin of magnetic fields observed in many galaxies and galaxy clusters. After recombination, the dissipation process of the primordial magnetic fields increases the baryon temperature. The Lorentz force acts on the residual ions and electrons to generate density fluctuations. These effects are imprinted on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) brightness temperature fluctuations produced by the neutral hydrogen 21cm line. We calculate the angular power spectrum of brightness temperature fluctuations for the model with the primordial magnetic fields of a several nano Gauss strength and a power-law spectrum. It is found that the overall amplitude and the shape of the brightness temperature fluctuations depend on the strength and the spectral index of the primordial magnetic fields. Therefore, it is expected that the observations of the CMB brightness temperature fluctuations give us a strong constraint on the primordial magnetic fields.Comment: 12 pages, submitted to MNRA

Emission from Bow Shocks of Beamed Gamma-Ray Bursts

Beamed gamma-ray burst (GRB) sources produce a bow shock in their gaseous environment. The emitted flux from this bow shock may dominate over the direct emission from the jet for lines of sight which are outside the angular radius of the jet emission, theta. The event rate for these lines of sight is increased by a factor of 260*(theta/5_degrees)^{-2}. For typical GRB parameters, we find that the bow shock emission from a jet with half-angle of about 5 degrees is visible out to tens of Mpc in the radio and hundreds of Mpc in the X-rays. If GRBs are linked to supernovae, studies of peculiar supernovae in the local universe should reveal this non-thermal bow shock emission for weeks to months following the explosion.Comment: ApJ, submitted, 15 pages, 3 figure

Detecting the Earliest Galaxies Through Two New Sources of 21cm Fluctuations

The first galaxies that formed at a redshift ~20-30 emitted continuum photons with energies between the Lyman-alpha and Lyman limit wavelengths of hydrogen, to which the neutral universe was transparent except at the Lyman-series resonances. As these photons redshifted or scattered into the Lyman-alpha resonance they coupled the spin temperature of the 21cm transition of hydrogen to the gas temperature, allowing it to deviate from the microwave background temperature. We show that the fluctuations in the radiation emitted by the first galaxies produced strong fluctuations in the 21cm flux before the Lyman-alpha coupling became saturated. The fluctuations were caused by biased inhomogeneities in the density of galaxies, along with Poisson fluctuations in the number of galaxies. Observing the power-spectra of these two sources would probe the number density of the earliest galaxies and the typical mass of their host dark matter halos. The enhanced amplitude of the 21cm fluctuations from the era of Lyman-alpha coupling improves considerably the practical prospects for their detection.Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures, ApJ, published. Normalization fixed in top panels of Figures 4-