Statistical Probes of Reionization with 21 Centimeter Tomography

By S. Furlanetto, M. Zaldarriaga, L. Hernquist. 2004

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We consider the degree to which 21 cm tomography of the high-redshift universe can distinguish different ionization histories. Using a new analytic model for the size distribution of H II regions that associates these ionized bubbles with large-scale galaxy overdensities, we compute the angular power spectrum and other statistical properties of the 21 cm brightness temperature during reionization. We show that the H II regions imprint features on the power spectrum that allow us to separate histories with discrete bubbles from those with partial uniform ionization (by, for example, X-rays). We also show that "double reionization" scenarios will modify the morphology of the bubbles in ways that depend on the mechanism through which the first generation of sources shuts off. If, for example, the transition occurs globally at a fixed redshift, the first generation imprints a persistent feature on the 21 cm power spectrum. Finally, we compare our model to one in which voids are ionized first. While the power spectra of these two models are qualitatively similar, we show that the underlying distributions of neutral hydrogen differ dramatically and suggest that other statistical tests can distinguish them. The next generation of low-frequency radio telescopes will have the sensitivity to distinguish all of these models and strongly constrain the history and morphology of reionization.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/3271c7bf6f70583bea0245d5f1582416e98c6869

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Citations in the corpus

Simulations and Analytic Calculations of Bubble Growth during Hydrogen Reionization (2006, methodology): “Detailed theoretical modeling (see e.g. Gnedin 2000; Razoumov et al. 2002; Ciardi et al. 2003; Sokasian et al. 2002; Sokasian et al. 2001; Furlanetto et al. 2004b,a; Kohler et al. 2005; Iliev et al. 2005; Mellema et al. 2006) is, however, required to constrain the topology of reionization from…”
Observational Constraints on Cosmic Reionization (2006, methodology): “…in prep Furlanetto, OhFurlanetto, S., Oh, S.P. 2005, MNRAS, 363, 1031 - 1048 Furlanetto & Loeb 2002Furlanetto, S, & Loeb, A. 2002, ApJ, 579, 1-9 Furlanetto et al. 2004aFurlanetto, S., Zaldarriaga, M. Hernquist, L. 2004, ApJ, 613, 16-22 Furlanetto et al. 2004bFurlanetto, S., Sokasian, A.,…”
Simulating cosmic reionization at large scales – II. The 21-cm emission features and statistical signals (2006, methodology): “…by considering small enough regions (thus achieving the high resolution required) either during the Cosmic Dark Ages (Shapiro et al. 2005; Kuhlen et al. 2006) or during reionization (Carilli et al. 2002; Ciardi & Madau 2003; Gnedin & Shaver 2004; Furlanetto et al. 2004; Valdés et al. 2006).”
Fast large volume simulations of the 21-cm signal from the reionization and pre-reionization epochs (2009, background): “The efficiency of this process can be quantified by one parameter ζ, so that a region will be ionized when: fcoll > ζ −1 , (4) where fcoll is the fraction of mass that has collapsed in halos in that region (Furlanetto et al. 2004b).”
The Growth of H II Regions During Reionization (2004, methodology): “We will examine only single reionization episodes here, although our formalism can accommodate other, more complicated histories as well (see Furlanetto et al. 2004b).”
Taxing the rich: Recombinations and bubble growth during reionization (2005, methodology): “…such as 21-cm studies of the high-redshift universe (e.g. Madau, Meiksin & Rees 1997; Ciardi & Madau 2003; Zaldarriaga, Furlanetto & Hernquist 2004; Furlanetto et al. 2004b), will see large contiguous ionized regions but can tell us little about how the mean free path evolves and hence how…”
WHAT NEXT-GENERATION 21 cm POWER SPECTRUM MEASUREMENTS CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION (2013, background): “Many groups have analyzed the observable effects of different reionization models on the 21 cm power spectrum; see e.g., Zaldarriaga et al. (2004), Furlanetto et al. (2004), McQuinn et al. (2006), Bowman et al. (2006), Bowman et al. (2007), Trac & Cen (2007), Lidz et al. (2008), and Iliev et al.…”
Fundamental physics with the Square Kilometre Array (2018, background): “…progress has been made in condensing these rich astrophysical effects into simple semi-analytical prescriptions that capture the large-scale features of the 21- cm signal during this period (Furlanetto et al., 2004a,b; Mesinger & Furlanetto, 2007; Mesinger et al., 2011; Visbal et al., 2012).”
21 cm Tomography with Foregrounds (2005, background): “…and experimental aspects of 21 cm radiation (e.g., Barkana & Loeb 2005b; Carilli et al. 2002, 2004; Ciardi &Madau 2003; Di Matteo et al. 2002, 2004; Furlanetto et al. 2004a, 2004b; Gnedin & Shaver 2004; Iliev et al. 2002, 2003; Loeb & Zaldarriaga 2004; McQuinn et al. 2006; Morales 2005; Oh & Mack…”
Detecting the Earliest Galaxies through Two New Sources of 21 Centimeter Fluctuations (2004, background): “We note that since ionizing sources are clustered (Wyithe & Loeb 2004b; Barkana & Loeb 2004; Furlanetto et al. 2004b), the appropriate cutoff scale might be somewhat larger.”
Early Cosmological H II/He III Regions and Their Impact on Second-Generation Star Formation (2006, background): “…2005, 2007; Zahn et al. 2005, 2007), which can be probed by future ground-based radio observations; turned around, the observations will provide rich information on the nature of the first sources of light (Madau et al. 1997; Zaldarriaga et al. 2004; Furlanetto et al. 2004b; Mellema et al. 2006).”
Efficient Simulations of Early Structure Formation and Reionization (2007, methodology): “…filtering procedures: (1) HII bubbles are allowed to overlap, and (2) the excursion set barrier (the criterion for ionization) becomes, as per Furlanetto et al. (2004a): fcoll(x1,M, z) ≥ ζ−1 , (14) where ζ is some efficiency parameter and fcoll(x1,M, z) is the fraction of mass residing in…”
The morphology of H ii regions during reionization (2006, methodology): “Analytic models provide a convenient and intuitive framework to understand the structure of reionization (Furlanetto et al. 2004b, 2005; Zahn et al. 2006).”