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arXiv 1003.1744astro-ph.CO
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HeI 584 A森林对氦再电离的诊断

The HeI 584 A Forest as a Diagnostic of Helium Reionization

Matthew McQuinn, Eric R. Switzer

摘要:

我们讨论了使用HeI 584 A森林探测和研究HeII再电离的潜力。在星系间的HeII区域,预计会有显著的584 A吸收,而在HeIII区域的低密度气体中应该没有可检测到的吸收。与He II Ly-alpha吸收(最近研究的主题)不同,使用这种跃迁来研究He II再电离的困难不是饱和,而是吸收很弱。这种跃迁的冈恩-彼得森光学厚度为τ ~ 0.1 x_{HeII} Δ ^2 [(1+z)/5]^{9/2},其中x_{HeII}是氦在HeII中的分数,Δ是以宇宙平均值为单位的密度。此外,HeI 584 A吸收被较低的红移HI Ly-alpha吸收污染,具有可比的通量衰减。我们估计了从低密度气体(Delta ~ 1)中确定性检测红移HeI吸收的要求,这将表明HeII再电离正在发生。我们发现,这一目标可以实现(使用同时期的HI Ly-alpha吸收来掩盖密集区域和互相关),光谱分辨率为10^4,每个分辨率元素的信噪比约为10。利用哈勃太空望远镜上的宇宙起源摄谱仪,在几个已知的z ~ 3.5类星体的视线上,这样的规格可能是可以实现的。我们还讨论了如何HeI吸收可以用来测量的硬度以上的电离背景13.6 eV。

英文摘要:

We discuss the potential of using the HeI 584 A forest to detect and study HeII reionization. Significant 584 A absorption is expected from intergalactic HeII regions, whereas there should be no detectable absorption from low density gas in HeIII regions. Unlike HeII Ly-alpha absorption (the subject of much recent study), the difficulty with using this transition to study HeII reionization is not saturation but rather that the absorption is weak. The Gunn-Peterson optical depth for this transition is tau ~ 0.1 x_{HeII} Delta^2 [(1+z)/5]^{9/2}, where x_{HeII} is the fraction of helium in HeII and Delta is the density in units of the cosmic mean. In addition, HeI 584 A absorption is contaminated by lower redshift HI Ly-alpha absorption with a comparable flux decrement. We estimate the requirements for a definitive detection of redshifted HeI absorption from low density gas (Delta ~ 1), which would indicate that HeII reionization was occurring. We find that this objective can be accomplished (using coeval HI Ly-alpha absorption to mask dense regions and in cross correlation) with a spectral resolution of 10^4 and a signal-to-noise ratio per resolution element of ~ 10. Such specifications may be achievable on a few known z ~ 3.5 quasar sightlines with the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph on the Hubble Space Telescope. We also discuss how HeI absorption can be used to measure the hardness of the ionizing background above 13.6 eV.

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