Enhanced Detectability of Pre-reionization 21-cm Structure

Abstract

Before the universe was reionized, it was likely that the spin temperature of intergalactic hydrogen was decoupled from the CMB by UV radiation from the first stars through the Wouthuysen-Field effect. If the IGM had not yet been heated above the CMB temperature by that time, then the gas would appear in absorption relative to the CMB. Large, rare sources of X-rays could inject sufficient heat into the neutral IGM, so that the differential brightness temperature was greater than zero at comoving distances of tens to hundreds of Mpc, resulting in large 21-cm fluctuations with amplitudes of about 250 mK on arcminute to degree angular scales, an order of magnitude larger in amplitude than that caused by ionized bubbles during reionization, about 25 mK. This signal could therefore be easier to detect and probe higher redshifts than that due to patchy reionization. For the case in which the first objects to heat the IGM are QSOs hosting 10^7-solar mass black holes with an abundance exceeding about 1 per Gpc^3 at z~15, observations with either the Arecibo Observatory or the Five Hundred Meter Aperture Spherical Telescope (FAST) could detect and image their fluctuations at greater than 5-sigma significance in about a month of dedicated survey time. Additionally, existing facilities such as MWA and LOFAR could detect the statistical fluctuations arising from a population of 10^5-solar mass black holes with an abundance of about 10^4 per Gpc^3 at z~10-12.

5 pages, 4 figures, submitted to ApJ Letters; comments welcome

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Cited by in corpus (10)

• 21-cm cosmology
• The GMRT-EoR Experiment: A new upper limit on the neutral hydrogen power spectrum at z~8.6
• 21 cm signal from cosmic dawn: Imprints of spin temperature fluctuations and peculiar velocities
• Imaging the redshifted 21-cm pattern around the first sources during the cosmic dawn using the SKA
• Spatially Extended 21 cm Signal from Strongly Clustered UV and X-Ray Sources in the Early Universe
• 21-cm signature of the first sources in the Universe: Prospects of detection with SKA
• Can the 21 cm signal probe Population III and II star formation?
• Constraints on the Redshift Evolution of the L_X-SFR Relation from the Cosmic X-Ray Backgrounds
• Distinctive 21 cm structures of the first stars, galaxies, and quasars
• Growth and anisotropy of ionization fronts near high redshift quasars in the MassiveBlack simulation