arXivDaily arXiv每日学术速递 周一至周五更新
arXiv 0908.1695astro-ph.COastro-ph.EPastro-ph.GA
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高红移源周围21 cm区域的Wouthuysen场耦合

Wouthuysen-Field Coupling in the 21 cm Region Around High Redshift Sources

I. Roy, W. Xu, J. M. Qiu, C. W. Shu, L. Z. Fang

摘要:

第一代恒星周围气体晕的21 cm发射和吸收依赖于Wouthuysen-Field(W-F)耦合,该耦合通过Lyman α光子与中性氢之间的共振散射将氢气的自旋温度与动力学温度联系起来。尽管中心物体通常是这些光子的强源,但是由于光子的光学深度大,因此这些光子在21 cm区域中的传输效率低。因此,来自源的这些光子可能无法及时转移到整个21 cm区域以提供W-F耦合。这个问题很重要,因为第一颗恒星的寿命通常很短。这个问题的积分微分方程,它描述了这些共振光子在物理和频率空间的动力学的数值解进行了研究。我们表明,在物理空间中的光子传输过程实际上是耦合到频率空间中。首先,在频率空间中的扩散为在物理空间中的扩散提供了捷径。它使得共振光子在光学深度为τ的介质中逃逸的平均时间与光学深度τ大致成正比,而不是τ^2。其次,共振散射在将具有不等于初始频率的频率的光子反弹回初始频率方面是有效的。这个过程可以恢复初始频率的光子,并建立在初始频率附近的光子谱的局部玻尔兹曼分布。因此,“捷径逃逸”加上“反弹”的机制使W-F耦合在第一颗星周围21 cm的区域内得以实现。这种机制也适用于通过红移注入21 cm区域的光子。

英文摘要:

The 21 cm emission and absorption from gaseous halos around the first generation of star depend on the Wouthuysen-Field (W-F) coupling, which relates the spin temperature with the kinetic temperature of hydrogen gas via the resonant scattering between Lyman alpha photons and neutral hydrogen. Although the center object generally is a strong source of these photons, the transfer of these photons in the 21 cm region is inefficient, as the optical depth of the photons is large. Consequently, these photons from the source may not be able to transfer to the entire 21 cm region timely to provide the W-F coupling. This problem is important because the lifetime of first stars generally is short. The problem is investigated with numerical solution of the integro-differential equation, which describes the kinetics of these resonant photons in both physical and frequency spaces. We show that the photon transfer process in the physical space is actually coupled to that in the frequency space. Firstly diffusion in the frequency space provides a shortcut for the diffusion in the physical space. It makes the mean time for the escape of the resonant photon in optical depth τmedia roughly proportional to the optical depth τ, not τ^2. Secondly the resonant scattering is effective in bouncing photons with a frequency which is not equal to initial frequency back to the initial frequency. This process can restore initial frequency photons and establish the local Boltzmann distribution of the photon spectrum around the initial frequency. Therefore, the mechanism of 'escape via shortcut' plus 'bounce back' enables W-F coupling to be properly realized in the 21 cm region around first stars. This mechanism also works for photons injected into the 21 cm region by redshift.

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