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arXiv 1012.2378astro-ph.CO
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宇宙复合时期的分子氢

Molecular hydrogen in the cosmic recombination epoch

Esfandiar Alizadeh, Christopher M. Hirata

摘要:

随着对宇宙微波背景辐射各向异性的精确测量的出现,相应地激发了对宇宙复合历史的精确计算。由于氢原子的$n=2$能级存在“瓶颈”,宇宙复合的过程远远超出了平衡状态:原子只能通过缓慢的过程到达基态:双光子衰变或莱曼-$n=2$共振逃逸。然而,即使是一个小的原始丰度的分子可以有一个大的影响线间的不透明度在重组时期,并导致一个额外的路线氢重组。因此,本文计算了宇宙复合时期H $_2$分子的丰度。基态电子能级X $^1Σ^+_g$中的氢分子可以由激发态H $_2$电子能级B $^1Σ^+_u$和C $^1Π_u$形成,或者通过带电粒子H $_2^+$、HeH $^+$和H $^-$形成。我们遵循所有这些物种之间的过渡,解决旋转和振动的子水平。由于X $^1Σ^+_g$ -B $^1Σ^+_u$(莱曼带)和X $^1Σ^+_g$ -C $^1Π_u$(维尔纳带)跃迁的能量接近莱曼- $α$能量,由逃逸的H莱曼线光子引起的CMB光谱的畸变加速了H $_2$的形成和破坏,这是由于该通道相对于热速率。这导致X $^1Σ^+_g$能级中H $_2$分子的布居数偏离其热平衡丰度。我们发现,由此产生的H $_2$丰度是在$z=1200$处的$10^{-17}$和在$z=800$处的$10^{-13}$,其太小而不会对重组历史产生任何显著影响。

英文摘要:

The advent of precise measurements of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies has motivated correspondingly precise calculations of the cosmic recombination history. Cosmic recombination proceeds far out of equilibrium because of a "bottleneck" at the $n=2$ level of hydrogen: atoms can only reach the ground state via slow processes: two-photon decay or Lyman-$α$ resonance escape. However, even a small primordial abundance of molecules could have a large effect on the interline opacity in the recombination epoch and lead to an additional route for hydrogen recombination. Therefore, this paper computes the abundance of the H$_2$ molecule during the cosmic recombination epoch. Hydrogen molecules in the ground electronic levels X$^1Σ^+_g$ can either form from the excited H$_2$ electronic levels B$^1Σ^+_u$ and C$^1Π_u$ or through the charged particles H$_2^+$, HeH$^+$ and H$^-$. We follow the transitions among all of these species, resolving the rotational and vibrational sub-levels. Since the energies of the X$^1Σ^+_g$--B$^1Σ^+_u$ (Lyman band) and X$^1Σ^+_g$-C$^1Π_u$ (Werner band) transitions are near the Lyman-$α$ energy, the distortion of the CMB spectrum caused by escaped H Lyman-line photons accelerates both the formation and the destruction of H$_2$ due to this channel relative to the thermal rates. This causes the populations of H$_2$ molecules in X$^1Σ^+_g$ energy levels to deviate from their thermal equilibrium abundances. We find that the resulting H$_2$ abundance is $10^{-17}$ at $z=1200$ and $10^{-13}$ at $z=800$, which is too small to have any significant influence on the recombination history.

机构、总结、中文摘要均由AI分析而来,可能存在错误,请以论文正文为准。

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