Predictions for the diffuse cosmic dipole at radio frequencies from reionization imprints
T. Trombetti, C. Burigana
备注：
Version very close to that in course of publication on Astronomy and Astrophysics. (First version submitted on June 14, 2019; official date of acceptance: 03/09/2019). 7 figures, 1 appendix, 12 pages; abstract appearing on arXiv slightly shorter than in paper version
The cosmological reionization can be studied in the radio through the tomographic view offered by the redshifted 21-cm line and the integrated information carried out by the diffuse free-free emission, coupled to the Comptonization distortion, relevant at higher frequencies. Current predictions span a wide range of possibilities, while the recent EDGES observations disagree with the standard models and call, if confirmed, for non-standard physical processes and/or for an early population of extragalactic sources producing a remarkable background at high redshifts almost consistent with the ARCADE 2 claim of a significant excess of CMB absolute temperature at low frequency. These signatures can be observed in global signal and fluctuations, from very large to small angular scales. The observer peculiar motion with respect to a reference frame in rest with respect to the CMB produces boosting effects in various observable quantities, remarkable at low multipoles, and particularly in the dipole, with frequency spectral behaviours depending on the monopole emission spectrum. We present a novel investigation at radio frequencies, aimed at predicting the imprints expected in the redshifted 21-cm line signal and in the diffuse free-free emission plus the Comptonization distortion for several models. Furthermore, we consider the same type of signal but expected from the cosmological radio background determining the offset for 21-cm line. The combination of these signals and their relevance in the various frequency ranges are studied. This approach, linking monopole and anisotropy analyses, can be applied on wide sky coverage surveys as well as to sets of sky patches. Relying only on the quality of interfrequency and relative data calibration, it in principle by-passes the need for precise absolute calibration, a critical point of current and future radio interferometric facilities.
Reionization of the cosmic neutral hydrogen by the first stars in the Universe is an inhomogeneous process which produces spatial fluctuations in free electron density. These fluctuations lead to observable signatures in cosmological probes like the cosmic microwave background (CMB). We explore the effect of the electron density fluctuations on CMB using photon-conserving semi-numerical simulations of reionization named \texttt{SCRIPT}. We show that the amplitude of the kinematic Sunyaev-Zeldovich (kSZ) and $B$-mode polarization signal depends on the patchiness in the spatial distribution of e…
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Quasars contribute to the 21-cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) primarily through their ionizing UV and X-ray emission. However, their radio continuum and Lyman-band emission also regulates the 21-cm signal in their direct environment, potentially leaving the imprint of their duty cycle. We develop a model for the radio and UV luminosity functions of quasars from the EoR, and constrain it using recent observations. Our model is consistent with the z~7.5 quasar from Banados et al 2017, and also predicts only a few quasars suitable for 21-cm forest observations (10mJy) in the sky. We…
Reionization leads to large spatial fluctuations in the intergalactic temperature that can persist well after its completion. We study the imprints of such fluctuations on the $z\sim5$ Ly$α$ forest flux power spectrum using a set of radiation-hydrodynamic simulations that model different reionization scenarios. We find that large-scale coherent temperature fluctuations bring $\sim20-60\%$ extra power at $k\sim0.002$ s/km, with the largest enhancements in the models where reionization is extended or ends the latest. On smaller scales ($k\gtrsim0.1$ s/km), we find that temperature fluctuations s…
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The accurate understanding of the ionization history of the Universe plays a fundamental role in modern cosmology. It includes a phase of cosmological reionization after the standard recombination epoch, possibly associated to the early stages of structure and star formation. While the simple "τ-parametrization" of the reionization process and, in particular, of its imprints on the CMB anisotropy likely represents a sufficiently accurate modelling for the interpretation of current CMB data, a great attention has been recently posed on the accurate computation of the reionization signatures in …
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Measuring the small primordial nonGaussianity (PNG) predicted by cosmic inflation theories may help diagnose them. The detectability of PNG by its imprint on the 21cm power spectrum from the epoch of reionization is reassessed here in terms of $f_{NL}$, the local nonlinearity parameter. We find that an optimum, multi-frequency observation by SKA can achieve $Δf_{NL} \sim 3$ (comparable to recent Planck CMB limits), while a cosmic-variance-limited array of this size like Omniscope can even detect $Δf_{NL} \sim 0.2$. This substantially revises the methods and results of previous work.
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Inhomogeneous reionization gives rise to angular fluctuations in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) optical depth tau(n) to the last scattering surface, correlating different spherical harmonic modes and imprinting characteristic non-Gaussianity on CMB maps. Recently the minimum variance quadratic estimator has been derived using this mode-coupling signal, and found that the optical depth fluctuations could be detected with (S/N)^2 ~ 100 in futuristic experiments like CMBPol. We first demonstrate that the non-Gaussian signal from gravitational lensing of CMB is the dominant source of contam…
One of the milestones in the cosmic history is the formation of the first luminous objects and Hydrogen reionization. The standard theory of cosmic structure formation predicts that the first generation of stars were born about a few hundred million years after the Big Bang. The dark Universe was then lit up once again, and eventually filled with ultraviolet photons emitted from stars, galaxies, and quasars. The exact epoch of the cosmic reionization and the details of the process, even the dominant sources, are not known except the fact that the universe was reionized early on. Signatures of …
The power spectrum of redshifted 21 cm emission brightness temperature fluctuations is a powerful probe of the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). However, bright foreground emission presents a significant impediment to its unbiased recovery from interferometric data. We build on the Bayesian power spectral estimation methodology introduced in Sims et al. 2016 and demonstrate that incorporating a priori knowledge of the spectral structure of foregrounds in the large spectral scale component of the data model enables significantly improved modelling of the foregrounds without increasing the model comp…
The impact of the IGM thermal state on the Ly$α$ flux 3D power spectrum from linear to highly non-linear scales
INAF - Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste（意大利国家天体物理研究所的里雅斯特天文台）；INFN, Sezione di Trieste（意大利国家核物理研究所的里雅斯特分部）；IFPU, Institute for Fundamental Physics of the Universe（宇宙基础物理研究所）；SISSA - International School for Advanced Studies（国际高等研究院）；Centre for Astrophysics Research, Department of Physics, Astronomy and Mathematics, University of Hertfordshire（赫特福德大学物理、天文与数学系天体物理学研究中心）
We discuss the feasibility of the detection of the 21cm forest in the diffuse IGM with the radio telescope LOFAR. The optical depth to the 21cm line has been derived using simulations of reionization which include detailed radiative transfer of ionizing photons. We find that the spectra from reionization models with similar total comoving hydrogen ionizing emissivity but different frequency distribution look remarkably similar. Thus, unless the reionization histories are very different from each other (e.g. a predominance of UV vs. x-ray heating) we do not expect to distinguish them by means o…
Cosmic Reionization imprints its signature on the temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Advances in CMB telescopes have already placed a significant constraint on the history of reionization. As near-future CMB telescopes target the maximum sensitivity, or observations limited only by the cosmic variance (CV), we hereby forecast the potential of future CMB observations in constraining the history of reionization. In this study, we perform Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis for CV-limited E-mode polarization observations such as the LiteBIRD (Light s…
We detect and characterise extended, diffuse radio emission from galaxy clusters at 168 MHz within the Epoch of Reionization 0-hour field: a $45^\circ \times 45^\circ$ region of the southern sky centred on R.~A.${}= 0^\circ$, decl.${}=-27^\circ$. We detect 29 sources of interest; a newly detected halo in Abell 0141; a newly detected relic in Abell 2751; 4 new halo candidates and a further 4 new relic candidates; and a new phoenix candidate in Abell 2556. Additionally, we find 9 clusters with unclassifiable, diffuse steep-spectrum emission as well as a candidate double relic system associated w…
Measurement of the 21cm hyperfine transition of neutral hydrogen provides a unique probe of the epoch of reionization and the Dark Ages. Three major mechanisms are believed to dominate the radiation process: emission from neutral hydrogen surrounding the ionized bubbles of first galaxies and/or quasars, emission from neutral hydrogen inside minihalos, and absorption of diffuse neutral hydrogen against the cosmic microwave background. In the present work, by simply combining the existing analytic models for the three mechanisms, we investigate the contribution of cross-correlation between these…
We show that axion-like particles that only couple to invisible dark photons can generate visible B-mode signals around the reionization epoch. The axion field starts rolling shortly before reionization, resulting in a tachyonic instability for the dark photons. This generates an exponential growth of the dark photon quanta sourcing both scalar metric modes and gravitational waves that leave an imprint on the reionized baryons. The tensor modes modify the cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization at reionization, generating visible B-mode signatures for the next generation of CMB experime…
The relative velocity between baryons and dark matter in the early Universe can suppress the formation of small-scale baryonic structure and leave an imprint on the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) scale at low redshifts after reionization. This "streaming velocity" affects the post-reionization gas distribution by directly reducing the abundance of pre-existing mini-halos ($\lesssim 10^7 M_{\bigodot}$) that could be destroyed by reionization and indirectly modulating reionization history via photoionization within these mini-halos. In this work, we investigate the effect of streaming velocit…
At cosmic recombination, there was supersonic relative motion between baryons and dark matter, which originated from the baryonic acoustic oscillations in the early universe. This motion has been considered to have a negligible impact on the late stage of cosmic reionization because the relative velocity quickly decreases. However, recent studies have suggested that the recombination in gas clouds smaller than the local Jeans mass ($\lesssim$ $10^8~M_\odot$) can affect the reionization history by boosting the number of ultraviolet photons required for ionizing the intergalactic medium. Motivat…
Conventional wisdom was that thermal relics from the epoch of reionization (EOR) would vanish swiftly. Recently, however, it was shown that these relics can survive to lower redshifts ($z \sim 2$) than previously thought, due to gas at mean density being heated to $T \sim 3 \times 10^4$ K by reionization, which is inhomogeneous, and shocks. Given the high sensitivities of upcoming Ly$α$ forest surveys, this effect will be a novel broadband systematic for cosmological application. From the astrophysical point of view, however, the imprint of inhomogeneous reionization can shed light on the EOR …
Upcoming measurements of the highly redshifted 21cm line with next-generation radio telescopes such as HERA and SKA will provide the intriguing opportunity to probe dark matter (DM) physics during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR), Cosmic Dawn, and the Dark Ages. With HERA already under construction, there is a pressing need to thoroughly understand the impact of DM physics on the intergalactic medium (IGM) during these epochs. We present first results of a hydrodynamic simulation suite with $2 \times 512^3$ particles in a $(100 \ h^{-1} \ \text{Mpc})^3$ box with DM annihilation and baryonic coo…
We apply the Correlated Component Analysis (CCA) method on simulated data of the Square Kilometre Array, with the aim of accurately cleaning the 21 cm reionization signal from diffuse foreground contamination. The CCA has been developed for the Cosmic Microwave Background, but the application of the Fourier-domain implementation of this method to the reionization signal is straightforward. The CCA is a parametric method to estimate the frequency behaviour of the foregrounds from the data by using second-order statistics. We test its performance on foreground simulations of increasing complexit…
We present the first complete calculation of the history of the inhomogeneous 21-cm signal from neutral hydrogen during the era of the first stars. We use hybrid computational methods to capture the large-scale distribution of the first stars, whose radiation couples to the neutral hydrogen emission, and to evaluate the 21-cm signal from z ~ 15-35. In our realistic picture large-scale fluctuations in the 21-cm signal are sourced by the inhomogeneous density field and by the Ly-alpha and X-ray radiative backgrounds. The star formation is suppressed by two spatially varying effects: negative fee…
The inhomogeneous cosmological reionization process leaves tangible imprints in the intergalactic medium down to z=4-5. The Lyman-alpha forest flux power spectrum provides a potentially powerful probe of the epoch of reionization. With the existing SDSS I/II quasar sample we show that two cosmological reionization scenarios, one completing reionization at z=6 and the other at z=9, can be distinguished at ~7 sigma level by utilizing Lyman alpha forest absorption spectra at z=4.5+-0.5, in the absence of other physical processes that may also affect the Lyman alpha flux power spectrum. The redshi…
Neutral diffuse intergalactic gas that existed during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) suppresses Lyman Alpha (Lya) flux emitted by background galaxies. In this chapter I summarise the increasing observational support for the claim that Lya photons emitted by galaxies at z>6 are suppressed by intervening HI gas. I describe key physical processes that affect Lya transfer during the EoR. I argue that in spite of the uncertainties associated with this complex multiscale problem, the data on Lya emitting galaxies at z=0-6 strongly suggests that the observed reduction in Lya flux from galaxies at z>…
We revisit the possibility of constraining the properties of dark matter (DM) by studying the epoch of cosmic reionization. Previous studies have shown that DM annihilation was unlikely to have provided a large fraction of the photons that ionized the universe, but instead played a subdominant role relative to stars and quasars. The DM, however, begins to efficiently annihilate with the formation of primordial microhalos at $z\sim100-200$, much earlier than the formation of the first stars. Therefore, if DM annihilation ionized the universe at even the percent level over the interval $z \sim 2…
We present a quantitative model of Lyman-alpha (Ly-alpha) emission throughout cosmic history and determine the prospects for intensity mapping of spatial fluctuations in the Ly-alpha signal. Since i) our model assumes at z>6 the minimum star formation required to sustain reionization and ii) is based at z<6 on a luminosity function extrapolated from the few observed bright Ly-alpha emitters, this should be considered a lower limit. Mapping the line emission allows probes of reionization, star formation, and large-scale structure (LSS) as a function of redshift. While Ly-alpha emission during r…
We explore the impact of reionization topology on 21-cm statistics. Four reionization models are presented which emulate large ionized bubbles around over-dense regions (21CMFAST/ global-inside- out), small ionized bubbles in over-dense regions (local-inside-out), large ionized bubbles around under-dense regions (global-outside-in) and small ionized bubbles around under-dense regions (local-outside-in). We show that first-generation instruments might struggle to distinguish global models using the shape of the power spectrum alone. All instruments considered are capable of breaking this degene…
Bright point sources associated with extragalactic AGN and radio galaxies are an important foreground for low frequency radio experiments aimed at detecting the redshifted 21cm emission from neutral hydrogen during the epoch of reionization. The frequency dependence of the synthesized beam implies that the sidelobes of these sources will move across the field of view as a function of observing frequency, hence frustrating line-of-sight foreground subtraction techniques. We describe a method for subtracting these point sources from dirty maps produced by an instrument such as the MWA. This tech…
The non-linear evolution of the energy density of the radiation is shown to induce spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background both at recombination and during the reionization era. This distortion has the same spectral signature as the one produced by the re-scattering of photons by non-relativistic hot electrons, the thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect, whose amplitude is quantified by a Compton y parameter. A diffuse y-sky is then expected to emerge from mode couplings in the non-linear evolution of the cosmological perturbations and to superimpose to the point source contributions…
In this work we present a new hybrid method to simulate the thermal effects of the reionization in cosmological hydrodynamical simulations. The method improves upon the standard approach used in simulations of the intergalactic medium (IGM) and galaxy formation without a significant increase of the computational cost allowing for efficient exploration of the parameter space. The method uses a small set of phenomenological input parameters and combines a semi-numerical reionization model to solve for the topology of reionization and an approximate model of how reionization heats the IGM, with t…
Cross-correlation between the redshifted 21 cm signal and Lyman-α emitters (LAEs) is powerful tool to probe the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). Although the cross-power spectrum (PS) has an advantage of not correlating with foregrounds much brighter than the 21 cm signal, the galactic and extra-galactic foregrounds prevent detection since they contribute to the variance of the cross PS. Therefore, strategies for mitigating foregrounds are required. In this work, we study the impact of foreground avoidance on the measurement of the 21 cm-LAE cross-correlation. We then simulate the 21 cm observatio…
The detection of the redshifted cosmological $21$~cm line signal requires the removal of the Galactic and extragalactic foreground emission, which is orders of magnitude brighter anywhere in the sky. Foreground cleaning methods currently used are efficient in removing spectrally smooth components. However, they struggle in the presence of not spectrally smooth contamination that is, therefore, potentially the most dangerous one. An example of this is the polarized synchrotron emission, which is Faraday rotated by the interstellar medium and leaks into total intensity due to instrumental imperf…
The neutral intergalactic medium in the post reionization epoch allows us to study cosmological structure formation through the observation of the redshifted 21 cm signal and the Lyman-alpha forest. We investigate the possibility of measuring the total neutrino mass through the suppression of power in the matter power spectrum. We investigate the possibility of measuring the neutrino mass through its imprint on the cross-correlation power spectrum of the 21-cm signal and the Lyman-alpha forest. We consider a radio-interferometric measurement of the 21 cm signal with a SKA1-mid like radio teles…
(ABRIDGED)The rise of cosmic structure depends upon the statistical distribution of initial density fluctuations generated by inflation. While the simplest models predict an almost perfectly Gaussian distribution, more-general models predict a level of primordial non-Gaussianity (PNG) that observations might yet be sensitive enough to detect. Recent Planck Collaboration measurements of the CMB temperature anisotropy bispectrum significantly tighten the observational limits, but they are still far from the PNG level predicted by the simplest models of inflation. Probing levels below CMB sensiti…
Probing statistical distribution of the neutral hydrogen (\HI) using the redshifted 21-cm hyperfine-transition spectral line holds the key to understand the formation and evolution of the matter density in the universe. The two-point statistics of the \HI distribution can be estimated by measuring the power spectrum of the redshifted 21-cm signal using visibility correlation. A major challenge in this regard is that the expected signal is weak compared to the foreground contribution from the Galactic synchrotron emission and extragalactic point sources in the observing frequencies. In this wor…
[Abridged] Understanding how the intergalactic medium (IGM) was reionized at z > 6 is one of the big challenges of current high redshift astronomy. It requires modelling the collapse of the first astrophysical objects (Pop III stars, first galaxies) and their interaction with the IGM, while at the same time pushing current observational facilities to their limits. The observational and theoretical progress of the last few years have led to the emergence of a coherent picture in which the budget of hydrogen-ionizing photons is dominated by low-mass star-forming galaxies, with little contributio…
We model the 21-cm signal and LAE population evolution during the epoch of reionization in order to predict the 21cm-LAE cross-power spectrum. We employ high-dynamic-range simulations of the IGM to create models that are consistent with constraints from the CMB, Lyman-$α$ forest and LAE population statistics. Using these models we consider the evolution of the cross-power spectrum for a selection of realistic reionization histories and predict the sensitivity of current and upcoming surveys to measuring this signal. We find that the imprint of a delayed-end to reionization can be observed by f…
We present detailed observations of MRC 0116+111, revealing a luminous, mini radio-halo of ~240 kpc diameter located at the centre of a cluster of galaxies at redshift z = 0.131. Our optical and multi-wavelength GMRT and VLA radio observations reveal a highly unusual radio source: showing a pair of giant (~100 kpc diameter) bubble-like diffuse structures, that are about three times larger than the analogous extended radio emission observed in M87 - the dominant central radio galaxy in the Virgo Cluster. However, in MRC 0116+111 we do not detect any ongoing Active Galactic Nucleus (AGN) activit…
Details of various unknown physical processes during the cosmic dawn and the epoch of reionization can be extracted from observations of the redshifted 21-cm signal. These observations, however, will be affected by the evolution of the signal along the line-of-sight which is known as the "light-cone effect". We model this effect by post-processing a dark matter $N-$body simulation with an 1-D radiative transfer code. We find that the effect is much stronger and dramatic in presence of inhomogeneous heating and Ly$α$ coupling compared to the case where these processes are not accounted for. One…
Recently it has been pointed out that a cosmic background of relativistic axion-like particles (ALPs) would be produced by the primordial decays of heavy fields in the post-inflation epoch, contributing to the extra-radiation content in the Universe today. Primordial magnetic fields would trigger conversions of these ALPs into sub-MeV photons during the dark ages. This photon flux would produce an early reionization of the Universe, leaving a significant imprint on the total optical depth to recombination $τ$. Using the current measurement of $τ$ and the limit on the extra-radiation content $Δ…
Cosmic reionization and dark matter decay can impact observations of the cosmic microwave sky in a similar way. A simultaneous study of both effects is required to constrain unstable dark matter from cosmic microwave background observations. We compare two reionization models with and without dark matter decay. We find that a reionization model that fits also data from quasars and star forming galaxies results in tighter constraints on the reionization optical depth $τ_{\text{reio}}$, but weaker constraints on the spectral index $n_{\text{s}}$ than the conventional parametrization. We use the …
The visibility of LyA emitting galaxies during the Epoch of Reionization is controlled by both diffuse HI patches in large-scale bubble morphology and small-scale absorbers. To investigate the impact on LyA photons, we apply a novel combination of analytic and numerical calculations to three scenarios: (i) the `bubble' model, where only diffuse HI outside ionized bubbles is present; (ii) the `web' model, where HI exists only in overdense self-shielded gas; and (iii) the more realistic 'web-bubble' model, which contains both. Our analysis confirms that there is a degeneracy between the ionizati…
Spectral distortions in the cosmic microwave background over the 40--200~MHz band are imprinted by neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium prior to the end of reionization. This signal, produced in the redshift range $z = 6-34$ at the rest frame wavelength of 21 cm, has not been detected yet; and poor understanding of high redshift astrophysics results in a large uncertainty in the expected spectrum. The SARAS~2 radiometer was purposely designed to detect the sky-averaged 21-cm signal. The instrument, deployed at the Timbaktu Collective (Southern India) in April--June 2017, collected 63~h…
The 21-cm signal from the epoch of cosmic dawn prior to reionization consists of a promising observable to gain new insights into the dark matter (DM) sector. In this paper, we investigate its potential to constrain mixed (cold + non-cold) dark matter scenarios that are characterised by the non-cold DM fraction ($f_{\rm nCDM}$) and particle mass ($m_{\rm nCDM}$). As non-cold DM species, we investigate both a fermionic (sterile neutrino) and a bosonic (ultra-light axion) particle. We show how these scenarios affect the global signal and the power spectrum using a halo-model implementation of th…
We present a theoretical study of intergalactic metal absorption lines imprinted in the spectra of distant quasars during and after the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). We use high resolution hydrodynamical simulations at high redshift ($4 <z<8$), assuming a uniform UV background Haardt--Madau 12, post-processing with CLOUDY photoionization models and Voigt profile fitting to accurately calculate column densities of the ions CII, CIV, SiII, SiIV and OI in the intergalactic medium (IGM). In addition, we generate mock observations of neutral Hydrogen (HI) at $z<6$. Our simulations successfully repro…
