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arXiv 0705.1825astro-ph
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再电离期恒星形成与21厘米辐射的相关性

The Correlation Between Star Formation and 21cm Emission During the Reionization Epoch

Stuart Wyithe, Avi Loeb, Brian Schmidt

摘要:

再电离被认为是由低质量星系主导的,而对已分辨星系的直接观测只能探测最大质量、最稀有的天体。累积Ly-alpha发射的表面亮度波动(作为恒星形成率的代理)和星系际介质(IGM)中性氢的红移21 cm信号之间的交叉相关性,将直接探测星系中电离光子的产生和IGM再电离之间的因果关系。我们讨论了探测这种未解决的星系的互相关的前景。我们发现,在<10弧分的角尺度上,使用来自太空的宽场近红外成像结合即将到来的Mileura宽场阵列-低频演示器进行检测将是实用的。当中性IGM的红移21厘米观测与Ly-alpha发射的天基近红外成像相结合时,即使使用小孔径光学望远镜(~2米)和中等视场(~10平方度),<3弧分的角尺度上的探测也会受到21厘米信号灵敏度的限制。在大于3角分的尺度上,互相关的测量将受到前景天空相减的精度的限制。

英文摘要:

Reionization is thought to be dominated by low mass galaxies, while direct observations of resolved galaxies probe only the most massive, rarest objects. The cross-correlation between fluctuations in the surface brightness of the cumulative Ly-alpha emission (which serves as a proxy for the star formation rate) and the redshifted 21cm signal from neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM), will directly probe the causal link between the production of ionizing photons in galaxies and the reionization of the IGM. We discuss the prospects for detecting this cross-correlation for unresolved galaxies. We find that on angular scales <10 arc-minutes, detection will be practical using widefield near-IR imaging from space in combination with the forthcoming Mileura Widefield Array - Low Frequency Demonstrator. When redshifted 21cm observations of the neutral IGM are combined with space-based near-IR imaging of Ly-alpha emission, the detection on angular scales <3 arc-minutes will be limited by the sensitivity of the 21cm signal, even when a small aperture optical telescope (~2m) and a moderate field of view (~10 square degrees) are used. On scales >3 arc-minutes, the measurement of cross-correlation will be limited by the accuracy of the foreground sky subtraction.

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