CMBPol Mission Concept Study: Reionization Science with the Cosmic Microwave Background

Abstract

We summarize existing constraints on the epoch of reionization and discuss the observational probes that are sensitive to the process. We focus on the role large scale polarization can play. Polarization probes the integrated optical depth across the entire epoch of reionization. Future missions such as Planck and CMBPol will greatly enhance our knowledge of the reionization history, allowing us to measure the time evolution of the ionization fraction. As large scale polarization probes high redshift activity, it can best constrain models where the Universe was fully or partially ionized at early times. In fact, large scale polarization could be our only probe of the highest redshifts.

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Cited by in corpus (9)

• WMAP7 and future CMB constraints on annihilating dark matter: implications for GeV-scale WIMPs
• Full covariance of CMB and lensing reconstruction power spectra
• Study of the Experimental Probe of Inflationary Cosmology (EPIC)-Intemediate Mission for NASA's Einstein Inflation Probe
• Relic Gravitational Waves with A Running Spectral Index and Its Constraints at High Frequencies
• Modeling dielectric half-wave plates for cosmic microwave background polarimetry using a Mueller matrix formalism
• Probing patchy reionization through tau-21cm correlation statistics
• The Origin of the Universe as Revealed Through the Polarization of the Cosmic Microwave Background
• Cosmic Reionization and the First Nonlinear Structures in the Universe
• Modeling the Intergalactic Medium during the Epoch of Reionization