The Reionization History at High Redshifts. I. Physical Models and New Constraints from Cosmic Microwave Background Polarization

By Zoltán Haiman, Gilbert P. Holder. 2003

185 citations recorded by the source corpus.

The recent discovery of a high optical depth τ to Thomson scattering from the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) data implies that significant reionization took place at redshifts z > 6. This discovery has important implications for the sources of reionization and allows, for the first time, constraints to be placed on physical reionization scenarios out to redshift z ~ 20. Using a new suite of semianalytic reionization models, we show that the high value of τ requires a surprisingly high efficiency ϵ of the first generation of UV sources for injecting ionizing photons into the intergalactic medium. We find that no simple reionization model can be consistent with the combination of the WMAP result with data from the z ≲ 6.5 universe. Satisfying both constraints requires either of the following: (1) H2 molecules form efficiently at z ~ 20, survive feedback processes, and allow UV sources in halos with virial temperatures Tvir < 104 K to contribute substantially to reionization, or (2) the efficiency ϵ in halos with Tvir > 104 K decreased by a factor of ≳30 between z ~ 20 and z ~ 6. We discuss the relevant physical issues to produce either scenario and argue that both options are viable and allowed by current data. In detailed models of the reionization history, we find that the evolution of the ionized fractions in the two scenarios has distinctive features that Planck can distinguish at ≳3 σ significance. At the high WMAP value for τ, Planck will also be able to provide tight statistical constraints on reionization model parameters and elucidate much of the physics at the end of the dark ages. The sources responsible for the high optical depth discovered by WMAP should be directly detectable out to z ~ 15 by the James Webb Space Telescope.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/5cd7348c5abc8bcba16818ae18949d433df364b8

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In Astronomy and Astrophysics

1. L. Hernquist
2. M. McQuinn
3. S. Furlanetto
4. P. Hopkins
5. Volker Springel
6. A. Mesinger
7. A. Meiksin
8. Renyue Cen

Citations in the corpus

• Observational Constraints on Cosmic Reionization (2006, background): “As shown by a number of semi-analytical works (e.g., Cen 2003a,b, Chiu et al. 2003, Wyithe & Loeb 2003, Haiman & Holder 2003), adding feedback from an early generation of galaxy formation, or adjusting star formation efficiency at z > 6− 10, will produce a prolonged, or multi-epoch reionization…”
• Statistical Probes of Reionization with 21 Centimeter Tomography (2004, background): “The results seem to indicate strong evolution in the sources responsible for reionization, and a precise measurement of the ionization history would strongly constrain early structure formation (Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Cen 2003; Haiman & Holder 2003; Sokasian et al. 2003b).”
• The Evolution of the Intergalactic Medium (2015, background): “This tension led to a plethora of exotic solutions (Cen 2003; Haiman & Holder 2003).”
• Taxing the rich: Recombinations and bubble growth during reionization (2005, background): “The most popular solution is to invoke some sort of feedback mechanism to decrease the ionizing efficiency of galaxies during reionization (e.g. Wyithe & Loeb 2003a,b; Cen 2003a,b; Haiman & Holder 2003).”
• Radiation Hydrodynamic Evolution of Primordial H II Regions (2003, background): “INTRODUCTION In light of recent WMAP results on reionization (Kogut et al. 2003) there has been renewed interest in early reionization scenarios (Haiman & Holder 2003; Cen 2003; Somerville & Livio 2003; Barkana & Loeb 2003; Sokasian, Abel, Hernquist, & Springel 2003; Ciardi, Ferrara, & White 2003;…”
• Cosmological Shock Waves and Their Role in the Large-Scale Structure of the Universe (2003, background): “However, considering that significant reionization would have taken place by z ∼ 15 (see, e.g., Haiman & Holder 2003), in post-processing we set the minimum gas temperature at Tmin = 10 4 K.”
• Multifrequency Analysis of 21 Centimeter Fluctuations from the Era of Reionization (2004, background): “…do give different large angular scale polarization power spectra, one cannot easily use these changes to fully reconstruct the reionization history as a function of redshift due to the large cosmic variance on large angular scales (Kaplinghat et al. 2003; Hu & Holder 2003; Haiman & Holder 2003).”
• Self-regulated reionization (2006, background): “…studies suggest that the inclusion of halos subject to Jeans-mass filtering has a significant effect on the mean reionization history (Shapiro et al. 1994; Shapiro1995; Chiu & Ostriker 2000; Haiman & Holder 2003; Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Onken & Miralda-Escudé 2004; Furlanetto & Loeb 2005).”
• The Growth of H II Regions During Reionization (2004, methodology): “…of fast reionization(e.g., Barkana & Loeb 2001 and references therein), but it is not yet clear what they do imply about early generations of luminous sources (Sokasian et al. 2003a,b; Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Cen 2003; Haiman & Holder 2003; Onken & Miralda-Escudé 2003; Fukugita & Kawasaki 2003).”
• 21 cm Tomography with Foregrounds (2005, methodology): “REIONIZATION MODEL AND FORMALISM The reionization model we use throughout this paper is from Haiman & Holder (2003) and Santos et al. (2003), shown as the solid curve in Figure 3 in Santos et al. (2003).”
• The global 21-centimeter background from high redshifts (2006, background): “…other radiation backgrounds) influence them and how small-scale structure evolves in the IGM – remain mysterious (Cen 2003a,b; Fukugita & Kawasaki 2003; Haiman & Holder 2003; Somerville & Livio 2003; Wyithe & Loeb 2003a,b; Onken & Miralda-Escudé 2004; Choudhury & Ferrara 2005; Furlanetto & Loeb…”
• IONIZING PHOTON ESCAPE FRACTIONS FROM HIGH-REDSHIFT DWARF GALAXIES (2008, background): “…escape fraction is ≥ 0.01 (e.g. Gnedin 2000; Cen 2003a,b; Wyithe & Loeb 2003a,b; Venkatesan et al. 2003; Somerville et al. 2003; Chiu et al. 2003; Haiman & Holder 2003; Ciardi et al. 2003; Sokasian et al. 2003, 2004; Wyithe & Cen 2007; Srbinovsky & Wyithe 2008) in order to reionize the…”
• Early Reionization by Miniquasars (2003, background): “1 Haiman & Holder 2003; Sokasian et al. 2003; Wyithe & Loeb 2003; Somerville & Livio 2003).”
• Shock waves in Eulerian cosmological simulations: main properties and acceleration of cosmic rays (2008, background): “Therefore, a study of cosmological shock waves must deal with the influence of a re-ionizing background (Haiman & Holder 2003; Loeb & Barkana 2001; Mellema et al. 2006).”