3,897 research outputs found
Constraining the unexplored period between reionization and the dark ages with observations of the global 21 cm signal
Observations of the frequency dependence of the global brightness temperature
of the redshifted 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen may be possible with single
dipole experiments. In this paper, we develop a Fisher matrix formalism for
calculating the sensitivity of such instruments to the 21 cm signal from
reionization and the dark ages. We show that rapid reionization histories with
duration delta z< 2 can be constrained, provided that local foregrounds can be
well modelled by low order polynomials. It is then shown that observations in
the range nu = 50 - 100 MHz can feasibly constrain the Lyman alpha and X-ray
emissivity of the first stars forming at z = 15 - 25, provided that systematic
temperature residuals can be controlled to less than 1 mK. Finally, we
demonstrate the difficulty of detecting the 21 cm signal from the dark ages
before star formation.Comment: 11 pages, 14 figures, submitted to PR
Global 21cm signal experiments: a designer's guide
[Abridged] The spatially averaged global spectrum of the redshifted 21cm line
has generated much experimental interest, for it is potentially a direct probe
of the Epoch of Reionization and the Dark Ages. Since the cosmological signal
here has a purely spectral signature, most proposed experiments have little
angular sensitivity. This is worrisome because with only spectra, the global
21cm signal can be difficult to distinguish from foregrounds such as Galactic
synchrotron radiation, as both are spectrally smooth and the latter is orders
of magnitude brighter. We establish a mathematical framework for global signal
data analysis in a way that removes foregrounds optimally, complementing
spectra with angular information. We explore various experimental design
trade-offs, and find that 1) with spectral-only methods, it is impossible to
mitigate errors that arise from uncertainties in foreground modeling; 2)
foreground contamination can be significantly reduced for experiments with fine
angular resolution; 3) most of the statistical significance in a positive
detection during the Dark Ages comes from a characteristic high-redshift trough
in the 21cm brightness temperature; and 4) Measurement errors decrease more
rapidly with integration time for instruments with fine angular resolution. We
show that if observations and algorithms are optimized based on these findings,
an instrument with a 5 degree beam can achieve highly significant detections
(greater than 5-sigma) of even extended (high Delta-z) reionization scenarios
after integrating for 500 hrs. This is in contrast to instruments without
angular resolution, which cannot detect gradual reionization. Abrupt ionization
histories can be detected at the level of 10-100's of sigma. The expected
errors are also low during the Dark Ages, with a 25-sigma detection of the
expected cosmological signal after only 100 hrs of integration.Comment: 34 pages, 30 figures. Replaced (v2) to match accepted PRD version
(minor pedagogical additions to text; methods, results, and conclusions
unchanged). Fixed two typos (v3); text, results, conclusions etc. completely
unchange
Redshifted 21cm Signatures Around the Highest Redshift Quasars
The Ly-alpha absorption spectrum of the highest redshift quasars indicates
that they are surrounded by giant HII regions, a few Mpc in size. The neutral
gas around these HII regions should emit 21cm radiation in excess of the Cosmic
Microwave Background, and enable future radio telescopes to measure the
transverse extent of these HII regions. At early times, the HII regions expand
with a relativistic speed. Consequently, their measured sizes along the
line-of-sight (via Ly-alpha absorption) and transverse to it (via 21 cm
emission) should have different observed values due to relativistic time-delay.
We show that the combined measurement of these sizes would directly constrain
the neutral fraction of the surrounding intergalactic medium (IGM) as well as
the quasar lifetime. Based on current number counts of luminous quasars at z>6,
an instrument like LOFAR should detect >2 redshifted 21cm shells per field
(with a radius of 11 degrees) around active quasars as bright as those already
discovered by SDSS, and >200 relic shells of inactive quasars per field. We
show that Ly-alpha photons from the quasar are unable to heat the IGM or to
couple the spin and kinetic temperatures of atomic hydrogen beyond the edge of
the HII region. The detection of the IGM in 21cm emission around high redshift
quasars would therefore gauge the presence of a cosmic Ly-alpha background
during the reionization epoch.Comment: 11 pages, 6 figures. Submitted to Ap
Scattered Lyman-alpha Radiation Around Sources Before Cosmological Reionization
The spectra of the first galaxies and quasars in the Universe should be
strongly absorbed shortward of their rest-frame Lyman-alpha wavelength by
neutral hydrogen (HI) in the intervening intergalactic medium. However, the
Lyman-alpha line photons emitted by these sources are not eliminated but rather
scatter until they redshift out of resonance and escape due to the Hubble
expansion of the surrounding intergalactic HI. We calculate the resulting
brightness distribution and the spectral shape of the diffuse Lyman-alpha line
emission around high redshift sources, before the intergalactic medium was
reionized. Typically, the Lyman-alpha photons emitted by a source at z=10
scatter over a characteristic angular radius of order 15 arcseconds around the
source and compose a line which is broadened and redshifted by about a thousand
km/s relative to the source. The scattered photons are highly polarized.
Detection of the diffuse Lyman-alpha halos around high redshift sources would
provide a unique tool for probing the neutral intergalactic medium before the
epoch of reionization. On sufficiently large scales where the Hubble flow is
smooth and the gas is neutral, the Lyman-alpha brightness distribution can be
used to determine the cosmological mass densities of baryons and matter.Comment: 21 pages, 5 Postscript figures, accepted by ApJ; figures 1--3
corrected; new section added on the detectability of Lyman alpha halos;
conclusions update
Prospects for Redshifted 21-cm observations of quasar HII regions
The introduction of low-frequency radio arrays over the coming decade is
expected to revolutionize the study of the reionization epoch. Observation of
the contrast in redshifted 21cm emission between a large HII region and the
surrounding neutral IGM will be the simplest and most easily interpreted
signature. We find that an instrument like the planned Mileura Widefield Array
Low-Frequency Demonstrator (LFD) will be able to obtain good signal to noise on
HII regions around the most luminous quasars, and determine some gross
geometric properties, e.g. whether the HII region is spherical or conical. A
hypothetical follow-up instrument with 10 times the collecting area of the LFD
(MWA-5000) will be capable of mapping the detailed geometry of HII regions,
while SKA will be capable of detecting very narrow spectral features as well as
the sharpness of the HII region boundary. The MWA-5000 will discover
serendipitous HII regions in widefield observations. We estimate the number of
HII regions which are expected to be generated by quasars. Assuming a late
reionization at z~6 we find that there should be several tens of quasar HII
regions larger than 4Mpc at z~6-8 per field of view. Identification of HII
regions in forthcoming 21cm surveys can guide a search for bright galaxies in
the middle of these regions. Most of the discovered galaxies would be the
massive hosts of dormant quasars that left behind fossil HII cavities that
persisted long after the quasar emission ended, owing to the long recombination
time of intergalactic hydrogen. A snap-shot survey of candidate HII regions
selected in redshifted 21cm image cubes may prove to be the most efficient
method for finding very high redshift quasars and galaxies.Comment: 14 pages, 8 figures. Submitted to Ap
Measuring the 3D Clustering of Undetected Galaxies Through Cross Correlation of their Cumulative Flux Fluctuations from Multiple Spectral Lines
We discuss a method for detecting the emission from high redshift galaxies by
cross correlating flux fluctuations from multiple spectral lines. If one can
fit and subtract away the continuum emission with a smooth function of
frequency, the remaining signal contains fluctuations of flux with frequency
and angle from line emitting galaxies. Over a particular small range of
observed frequencies, these fluctuations will originate from sources
corresponding to a series of different redshifts, one for each emission line.
It is possible to statistically isolate the fluctuations at a particular
redshift by cross correlating emission originating from the same redshift, but
in different emission lines. This technique will allow detection of clustering
fluctuations from the faintest galaxies which individually cannot be detected,
but which contribute substantially to the total signal due to their large
numbers. We describe these fluctuations quantitatively through the line cross
power spectrum. As an example of a particular application of this technique, we
calculate the signal-to-noise ratio for a measurement of the cross power
spectrum of the OI(63 micron) and OIII(52 micron) fine structure lines with the
proposed Space Infrared Telescope for Cosmology and Astrophysics. We find that
the cross power spectrum can be measured beyond a redshift of z=8. Such
observations could constrain the evolution of the metallicity, bias, and duty
cycle of faint galaxies at high redshifts and may also be sensitive to the
reionization history through its effect on the minimum mass of galaxies. As
another example, we consider the cross power spectrum of CO line emission
measured with a large ground based telescope like CCAT and 21-cm radiation
originating from hydrogen in galaxies after reionization with an interferometer
similar in scale to MWA, but optimized for post-reionization redshifts.Comment: 21 pages, 6 figures; Replaced with version accepted by JCAP; Added an
example of cross correlating CO line emission and 21cm line emission from
galaxies after reionizatio
Constraining the Collisional Nature of the Dark Matter Through Observations of Gravitational Wakes
We propose to use gravitational wakes as a direct observational probe of the
collisional nature of the dark matter. We calculate analytically the structure
of a wake generated by the motion of a galaxy in the core of an X-ray cluster
for dark matter in the highly-collisional and collisionless limits. We show
that the difference between these limits can be recovered from detailed X-ray
or weak lensing observations. We also discuss the sizes of sub-halos in these
limits. Preliminary X-ray data on the motion of NGC 1404 through the Fornax
group disfavors fluid-like dark matter but does not exclude scenarios in which
the dark matter is weakly collisional.Comment: 29 pages, 3 figures, submitted to Ap
Evolution of the 21 cm signal throughout cosmic history
The potential use of the redshifted 21 cm line from neutral hydrogen for
probing the epoch of reionization is motivating the construction of several
low-frequency interferometers. There is also much interest in the possibility
of constraining the initial conditions from inflation and the nature of the
dark matter and dark energy by probing the power-spectrum of density
perturbations in three dimensions and on smaller scales than probed by the
microwave background anisotropies. Theoretical understanding of the 21 cm
signal has been fragmented into different regimes of physical interest. In this
paper, we make the first attempt to describe the full redshift evolution of the
21 cm signal between 0<z<300.
We include contributions to the 21 cm signal from fluctuations in the gas
density, temperature and neutral fraction, as well as the Lyman alpha flux, and
allow for a post-reionization signal from damped Ly alpha systems. Our
comprehensive analysis provides a useful foundation for optimizing the design
of future arrays whose goal is to separate the particle physics from the
astrophysics, either by probing the peculiar velocity distortion of the 21 cm
power spectrum, or by extending the 21 cm horizon to z > 25 before the first
galaxies had formed, or to z < 6 when the residual pockets of hydrogen trace
large scale structure.Comment: 15 pages, 11 figures, submitted to PR
Probing the Mass Fraction of MACHOs in Extragalactic Halos
Current microlensing searches calibrate the mass fraction of the Milky Way
halo which is in the form of Massive Compact Halo Objects (MACHOs). We show
that surveys like the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) can probe the same
quantity in halos of distant galaxies. Microlensing of background quasars by
MACHOs in intervening galaxies would distort the equivalent width distribution
of the quasar emission lines by an amplitude that depends on the projected
quasar-galaxy separation. For a statistical sample of detectable at the >2sigma
level out to a quasar-galaxy impact parameter of several tens of kpc, as long
as extragalactic halos are made of MACHOs. Detection of this signal would test
whether the MACHO fraction inferred for the Milky-Way halo is typical of other
galaxies.Comment: 12 pages, 2 figures, submitted to ApJ Letter
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