The evolution of CMB spectral distortions in the early Universe

Abstract

The energy spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) allows constraining episodes of energy release in the early Universe. In this paper we revisit and refine the computations of the cosmological thermalization problem. For this purpose a new code, called CosmoTherm, was developed that allows solving the coupled photon-electron Boltzmann equation in the expanding, isotropic Universe for small spectral distortion in the CMB. We explicitly compute the shape of the spectral distortions caused by energy release due to (i) annihilating dark matter; (ii) decaying relict particles; (iii) dissipation of acoustic waves; and (iv) quasi-instantaneous heating. We also demonstrate that (v) the continuous interaction of CMB photons with adiabatically cooling non-relativistic electrons and baryons causes a negative mu-type CMB spectral distortion of DI_nu/I_nu ~ 10^{-8} in the GHz spectral band. We solve the thermalization problem including improved approximations for the double Compton and Bremsstrahlung emissivities, as well as the latest treatment of the cosmological recombination process. At redshifts z <~ 10^3 the matter starts to cool significantly below the temperature of the CMB so that at very low frequencies free-free absorption alters the shape of primordial distortions significantly. In addition, the cooling electrons down-scatter CMB photons introducing a small late negative y-type distortion at high frequencies. We also discuss our results in the light of the recently proposed CMB experiment Pixie, for which CosmoTherm should allow detailed forecasting. Our current computations show that for energy injection because of (ii) and (iv) Pixie should allow to improve existing limits, while the CMB distortions caused by the other processes seem to remain unobservable with the currently proposed sensitivities and spectral bands of Pixie.

22 pages, 19 figures, 1 table, accepted by MNRAS

References in corpus (11)

• Three Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Polarization Analysis
• CMB Constraints on WIMP Annihilation: Energy Absorption During the Recombination Epoch
• Evolution of the 21 cm signal throughout cosmic history
• Contraints on radiative dark-matter decay from the cosmic microwave background
• Constraints on Dark Matter annihilations from reionization and heating of the intergalactic gas
• Lines in the cosmic microwave background spectrum from the epoch of cosmological helium recombination
• Free-bound emission from cosmological hydrogen recombination
• ${}^6$Li Production by the Radiative Decay of Long-Lived Particles
• Is there a need and another way to measure the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature more accurately?
• The cosmic X-ray and gamma-ray background from dark matter annihilation
• The double Compton emissivity in a mildly relativistic thermal plasma within the soft photon limit

Cited by in corpus (262)

• Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters
• Planck 2018 results. I. Overview and the cosmological legacy of Planck
• Cosmological Backgrounds of Gravitational Waves
• The landscape of QCD axion models
• Indirect Dark Matter Signatures in the Cosmic Dark Ages I. Generalizing the Bound on s-wave Dark Matter Annihilation from Planck
• Fundamental Physics with the Square Kilometre Array
• Probing the inflaton: Small-scale power spectrum constraints from measurements of the CMB energy spectrum
• General Constraints on Dark Matter Decay from the Cosmic Microwave Background
• Revisiting Big-Bang Nucleosynthesis Constraints on Long-Lived Decaying Particles
• Indirect Dark Matter Signatures in the Cosmic Dark Ages II. Ionization, Heating and Photon Production from Arbitrary Energy Injections
• Cosmological constraints on exotic injection of electromagnetic energy
• CMB at 2x2 order: the dissipation of primordial acoustic waves and the observable part of the associated energy release
• Features and New Physical Scales in Primordial Observables: Theory and Observation
• Gravitational waves at interferometer scales and primordial black holes in axion inflation
• PRISM (Polarized Radiation Imaging and Spectroscopy Mission): An Extended White Paper
• Redefining the Axion Window
• Planck 2015 results. XIX. Constraints on primordial magnetic fields
• Exploring Cosmic Origins with CORE: Inflation
• Constraints on dark matter interactions with standard model particles from CMB spectral distortions
• Teasing bits of information out of the CMB energy spectrum
• Rethinking CMB foregrounds: systematic extension of foreground parameterizations
• Silk damping at a redshift of a billion: a new limit on small-scale adiabatic perturbations
• The Cosmological Evolution of Light Dark Photon Dark Matter
• Which spectral distortions does $\Lambda$CDM actually predict?
• A Fourth Exception in the Calculation of Relic Abundances
• The Effects of Dark Matter-Baryon Scattering on Redshifted 21 cm Signals
• Primordial gravitational waves in the nano-Hertz regime and PTA data -- towards solving the GW inverse problem
• Beyond y and μ: the shape of the CMB spectral distortions in the intermediate epoch, 1.5x10^4 < z < 2x10^5
• Distinguishing different scenarios of early energy release with spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background
• Green's function of the cosmological thermalization problem
• BBN constraints on MeV-scale dark sectors. Part II. Electromagnetic decays
• CMB spectral distortions from small-scale isocurvature fluctuations
• Taking the Universe's Temperature with Spectral Distortions of the Cosmic Microwave Background
• CMB and BBN constraints on evaporating primordial black holes revisited
• Phases of Cannibal Dark Matter
• The synergy between CMB spectral distortions and anisotropies
• Prospects for Measuring Cosmic Microwave Background Spectral Distortions in the Presence of Foregrounds
• Green's function of the cosmological thermalization problem II: effect of photon injection and constraints
• Lecture Notes in Cosmology
• Constraints on Primordial Black Holes From Big Bang Nucleosynthesis Revisited
• FAST-PT II: an algorithm to calculate convolution integrals of general tensor quantities in cosmological perturbation theory
• A new probe of the small-scale primordial power spectrum: astrometric microlensing by ultracompact minihalos
• Spectral distortion constraints on photon injection from low-mass decaying particles
• Non-universal BBN bounds on electromagnetically decaying particles
• Mixing of blackbodies: entropy production and dissipation of sound waves in the early Universe
• Creation of the CMB spectrum: precise analytic solutions for the blackbody photosphere
• Constraining primordial magnetic fields with distortions of the black-body spectrum of the cosmic microwave background: pre- and post-decoupling contributions
• Revisiting cosmological bounds on sterile neutrinos
• Unavoidable CMB spectral features and blackbody photosphere of our Universe
• Updated Constraints and Forecasts on Primordial Tensor Modes
• Does Bose-Einstein condensation of CMB photons cancel μ distortions created by dissipation of sound waves in the early Universe?
• Reheating the Universe Once More: The Dissipation of Acoustic Waves as a Novel Probe of Primordial Inhomogeneities on Even Smaller Scales
• Dark radiation from particle decay: cosmological constraints and opportunities
• Limits on MeV Dark Matter from the Effective Number of Neutrinos
• Updated BBN constraints on electromagnetic decays of MeV-scale particles
• Cosmological constraints from CMB distortion
• Super heavy thermal dark matter
• Forecasts for CMB μ- and i-type spectral distortion constraints on the primordial power spectrum on scales 8 < k < 10^4 Mpc^-1 with the future Pixie-like experiments
• On the detection of spectral ripples from the Recombination Epoch
• Sterile Neutrinos and Light Dark Matter Save Each Other
• CosmoSpec: Fast and detailed computation of the cosmological recombination radiation from hydrogen and helium
• Living with ghosts in Horava-Lifshitz gravity
• Thermalization of large energy release in the early Universe
• Cosmological beam dump: constraints on dark scalars mixed with the Higgs boson
• Limits from BBN on Light Electromagnetic Decays
• Constraints on primordial magnetic fields from CMB distortions in the axiverse
• Cosmological bounds on dark matter-photon coupling
• Connecting CMB anisotropy and cold dark matter phenomenology via reheating
• Probing the scale dependence of non-Gaussianity with spectral distortions of the cosmic microwave background
• Cosmological constraints on decaying axion-like particles: a global analysis
• CMB Spectral Distortions: Status and Prospects
• Tests of the CMB temperature-redshift relation, CMB spectral distortions and why adiabatic photon production is hard
• Shedding light on the small-scale crisis with CMB spectral distortions
• Number Counts and Non-Gaussianity
• A loophole to the universal photon spectrum in electromagnetic cascades: application to the "cosmological lithium problem"
• The Cosmic Microwave Background: The history of its experimental investigation and its significance for cosmology
• Multi-interacting dark energy and its cosmological implications
• Testing the Running of non-Gaussianity through the CMB mu-distortion and the Halo Bias
• Bridging the gap: spectral distortions meet gravitational waves
• Primordial black holes as a novel probe of primordial gravitational waves. II: Detailed analysis
• $\mu$-Distortions or Running: A Guaranteed Discovery from CMB Spectrometry
• Dark Sector Equilibration During Nucleosynthesis
• Cosmological Implications of High-Energy Neutrino Emission from the Decay of Long-Lived Particle
• Effective photon mass and (dark) photon conversion in the inhomogeneous Universe
• Strategies to Detect Dark-Matter Decays with Line-Intensity Mapping
• Spectral distortions from the dissipation of tensor perturbations
• CMB anisotropy and BBN constraints on pre-recombination decay of dark matter to visible particles
• Refined approximations for the distortion visibility function and mu-type spectral distortions
• The cosmic optical background excess, dark matter, and line-intensity mapping
• Testing dark matter interactions with CMB spectral distortions
• Microwave Spectro-Polarimetry of Matter and Radiation across Space and Time
• Consistency conditions and primordial black holes in single field inflation
• Testing Inflation and Curvaton Scenarios with CMB Distortions
• Cosmology Intertwined: A Review of the Particle Physics, Astrophysics, and Cosmology Associated with the Cosmological Tensions and Anomalies
• Big-bang nucleosynthesis with sub-GeV massive decaying particles
• The meso-inflationary QCD axion
• Rich structure of non-thermal relativistic CMB spectral distortions from high energy particle cascades at redshifts $z\lesssim 2\times 10^5$
• Using CMB spectral distortions to distinguish between dark matter solutions to the small-scale crisis
• Evolution of CMB spectral distortion anisotropies and tests of primordial non-Gaussianity
• Polarized anisotropic spectral distortions of the CMB: Galactic and extragalactic constraints on photon-axion conversion
• Non-thermal photons and H2 formation in the early Universe
• Mapping the relativistic electron gas temperature across the sky
• Combining ILC and moment expansion techniques for extracting average-sky signals and CMB anisotropies
• Projected-Field Kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Cross-Correlations: Halo Model and Forecasts
• Constraints on hidden photons from current and future observations of CMB spectral distortions
• The Second Radio Synchrotron Background Workshop: Conference Summary and Report
• Formation of supermassive primordial black holes by Affleck-Dine mechanism
• The role of soft photon injection and heating in 21 cm cosmology
• Improved calculations of electron-ion Bremsstrahlung Gaunt factors for astrophysical applications
• One $\mu$ to rule them all: CMB spectral distortions can probe domain walls, cosmic strings and low scale phase transitions
• Late-time magnetogenesis driven by ALP dark matter and dark photon
• ALMA Spectroscopic Survey in the Hubble Ultra Deep Field: implications for spectral line intensity mapping at millimeter wavelengths and CMB spectral distortions
• Primordial trispectra and CMB spectral distortions
• Dust moments: towards a new modelling of the galactic dust emission for CMB B-modes analysis
• Large fluctuations and Primordial Black Holes
• Extracting foreground-obscured $\mu$-distortion anisotropies to constrain primordial non-Gaussianity
• Quasi-extremal primordial black holes are a viable dark matter candidate
• Spectral distortion anisotropies from single-field inflation
• Self-interacting dark matter with a stable vector mediator
• Induced superhorizon tensor perturbations from anisotropic non-Gaussianity
• Gravitino LSP and leptogenesis after the first LHC results
• Non-Gaussianity constraints from Planck spectral distortion cross-correlations
• A Leptonic ALP Portal to the Dark Sector
• Axion Dark Matter from Lepton flavor-violating Decays
• Constraining the Initial Primordial Black Hole Clustering with CMB-distortion
• Spectral distortions of the CMB dipole
• Semi-analytical description of clumping factor and CMB free-free distortions from reionization
• Cosmic Strings in Hidden Sectors: 2. Cosmological and Astrophysical Signatures
• Millicharged Relics Reveal Massless Dark Photons
• Exploring cosmic origins with CORE: effects of observer peculiar motion
• Maximal axion misalignment from a minimal model
• CMB distortion anisotropies due to the decay of primordial magnetic fields
• An Ultimate Target for Dark Matter Searches
• CMB constraints on dark matter phenomenology via reheating in minimal plateau inflation
• Observational Evidence of Evolving Dark Matter Profiles at $z\le 1$
• Double Compton and Cyclo-Synchrotron in Super-Eddington Disks, Magnetized Coronae, and Jets
• Magnetic heating across the cosmological recombination era: Results from 3D MHD simulations
• The role of CMB spectral distortions in the Hubble tension: a proof of principle
• Dark neutrino interactions make gravitational waves blue
• Sensitivity forecasts for the cosmological recombination radiation in the presence of foregrounds
• CMB spectral distortions from the decay of causally generated magnetic fields
• Clarifying transfer function approximations for the large-scale gravitational wave background in $\Lambda$CDM
• CMB Distortions from Damping of Acoustic Waves Produced by Cosmic Strings
• Spectral Distortion of the CMB by the Cumulative CO Emission from Galaxies throughout Cosmic History
• Correlating CMB Spectral Distortions with Temperature: what do we learn on Inflation?
• Cosmological Constraints on Dark Scalar
• Photons from dark photon solitons via parametric resonance
• New CMB spectral distortion constraints on decaying dark matter with full evolution of electromagnetic cascades before recombination
• Unlocking the synergy between CMB spectral distortions and anisotropies
• Constraints on Gravitino Decay and the Scale of Inflation using CMB spectral distortions
• Probing spatial variation of the fine-structure constant using the CMB
• The double Compton process in astrophysical plasmas
• Angular dependence of primordial trispectra and CMB spectral distortions
• Breaking Be: a sterile neutrino solution to the cosmological lithium problem
• Spectral Distortion Anisotropy from Inflation for Primordial Black Holes
• CMB $\mu T$ cross-correlations as a probe of PBH scenarios
• Measuring primordial anisotropic correlators with CMB spectral distortions
• Seeking dark matter with $\gamma$-ray attenuation
• Smooth vs instant inflationary transitions: steepest growth re-examined and primordial black holes
• Conformal Freeze-In of Dark Matter
• Inflation in $F(R)$ gravity models revisited after ACT
• Improved model-independent constraints on the recombination era and development of a direct projection method
• Dissecting the Compton scattering kernel I: Isotropic media
• Magnetic reheating
• Suppression of Bremsstrahlung losses from relativistic plasma with energy cutoff
• Can accreting primordial black holes explain the excess radio background?
• Constraints on non-resonant photon-axion conversion from the Planck satellite data
• Impact of EDGES 21cm Global Signal on Primordial Power Spectrum
• Spectral distortions in the cosmic microwave background polarization
• Cosmological Bounds on sub-GeV Dark Vector Bosons from Electromagnetic Energy Injection
• Limits on the fluctuating part of $y$-type distortion monopole from Planck and SPT results
• Testing distance duality with CMB anisotropies
• Was Entropy Conserved between BBN and Recombination?
• The effects of the small-scale behaviour of dark matter power spectrum on CMB spectral distortion
• Regularized-Renormalized-Resummed loop corrected power spectrum of non-singular bounce with Primordial Black Hole formation
• Curvature Perturbations From Stochastic Particle Production During Inflation
• Radiative transport of relativistic species in cosmology
• CMB Spectral Distortion Constraints on Thermal Inflation
• Enlightening the dark ages with dark matter
• Neutrino Masses from Low Scale Partial Compositeness
• On a possible nonequilibrium imprint in the cosmic background at low frequencies
• Effects of thermal inflation on small scale density perturbations
• CMB spectral distortions from continuous large energy release
• Probing early-universe phase transitions with CMB spectral distortions
• The Continuum Dark Matter Zoo
• Primordial tensor bispectra in $\mu$-CMB cross-correlations
• Constraint on the early-formed dark matter halos using the free-free emission in the Planck foreground analysis
• FSD: Frequency Space Differential measurement of CMB spectral distortions
• CMB spectral distortions as solutions to the Boltzmann equations
• Primordial Black Holes from Effective Field Theory of Stochastic Single Field Inflation at NNNLO
• Leverage on small-scale primordial non-Gaussianity through cross-correlations between CMB $E$-mode and $\mu$-distortion anisotropies
• Cosmological Constraints on Unstable Particles: Numerical Bounds and Analytic Approximations
• Light Dark Matter: A Common Solution to the Lithium and $H_0$ Problems
• Shaping Dark Photon Spectral Distortions
• Constraining dark photon model with dark matter from CMB spectral distortions
• New Horizons in Cosmology with Spectral Distortions of the Cosmic Microwave Background
• The Darkness of Spin-0 Dark Radiation
• Impact of Dust on Spectral Distortion Measurements of the Cosmic Microwave Background
• CMB spectral distortions in generic two-field models
• The Distortion of the Cosmic Microwave Background Spectrum Due to Intergalactic Dust
• Inverse-Compton Scattering of the Cosmic Infrared Background
• One-loop corrections to the E-type $\alpha$-attractor models of inflation and primordial black hole production
• Least response method to separate CMB spectral distortions from foregrounds
• Constraints on long-lived electrically charged massive particles from anomalous strong lens systems
• Stokes parameters spectral distortions due to the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect and an independent estimation of the CMB low multipoles
• Missing dust signature in the cosmic microwave background
• CMB Spectral $\mu$-Distortion of Multiple Inflation Scenario
• Comparison of numerical methods for computing the repeated Compton scattering of photons in isotropic media
• Can a Breakdown of Hawking Evaporation Open a New Mass Window for Primordial Black Holes as Dark Matter?
• Robust μ-distortion constraints on primordial supermassive black holes from cubic (gNL) non-Gaussian perturbations
• Challenges in Cosmology from the Big Bang to Dark Energy, Dark Matter and Galaxy Formation
• Separation of CMB $\mu$ spectral distortions from foregrounds with poorly defined spectral shapes
• Physics of the Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation
• Sharp spectral features from light dark matter decay via gravity portals
• CMB Spectral Distortions from Cooling Macroscopic Dark Matter
• Early Decay of Peccei-Quinn Fermion and the IceCube Neutrino Events
• Strong Dark Matter Self-Interaction from a Stable Scalar Mediator
• A Diffused Background from Axion-like Particles in the Microwave Sky
• Constraints on $N_{\mathrm{eff}}$ of high energy non-thermal neutrino injections upto $z\sim 10^8$ from CMB spectral distortions and abundance of light elements
• Non-thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich signal from radio galaxy lobes
• Testing kinetically coupled inflation models with CMB distortions
• The impact of non-Planckian effects on cosmological radio backgrounds
• Interacting photon-baryon fluid, warm dark matter and the first acoustic peak
• Fermion condensate from torsion in the reheating era after inflation
• Small-scale Effects of Thermal Inflation on Halo Abundance at High-$z$, Galaxy Substructure Abundance and 21-cm Power Spectrum
• Test of the Einstein equivalence principle with spectral distortions in the cosmic microwave background
• NMSSM with Gravitino Dark Matter to be tested at LHC
• Cosmology with Recombination Spectrum
• Cosmic Neutrino Decoupling and its Observable Imprints: Insights from Entropic-Dual Transport
• Energy injection in pre-recombination era and EDGES detection
• Variation of the baryon-to-photon ratio due to decay of dark matter particles
• Local burst model of CMB temperature fluctuations: luminescence in lines of primary para- and orthohelium
• Updated cosmological constraints on Macroscopic Dark Matter
• Effects of observer peculiar motion on the isotropic background frequency spectrum: from monopole to higher multipoles
• Spectral Distortion Signatures of Step-like Inflationary Potential
• Constraining broad photon spectrum injections from exotic and astrophysical sources
• Non-thermal photons and direct photodissociation of H2, HD and HeH+ in the chemistry of the primordial Universe
• A convolutional-neural-network estimator of CMB constraints on dark matter energy injection
• Multi-Component Dark Matter from Minimal Flavor Violation
• Window for preferred axion models
• SPECTER: An Instrument Concept for CMB Spectral Distortion Measurements with Enhanced Sensitivity
• Turbulence Induced Non-Gaussian Spectral Distortion in the Microwave Sky from Photon-Axion Conversion in Galaxy Clusters
• Challenges and prospects for better measurements of the CMB intensity spectrum
• Probing Non-Minimal Dark Sectors via the 21 cm Line at Cosmic Dawn
• Numerical scheme for evaluating the collision integrals for triple interactions in relativistic plasma
• CMB spectroscopy at third-order in cosmological perturbations
• EDGES of the dark forest: A new absorption window into the composite dark matter and large scale structure
• Fifty shades of grayness: parametrizations of spectral distortions and applications in cosmology
• Mixed Inflaton and Spectator Field Models: CMB constraints and $\mu$ distortion
• Cosmic Rays and Spectral Distortions from Collapsing Textures
• The non-thermal secondary CMB anisotropies from a cosmic distribution of radio galaxy lobes
• Thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich measurements and cosmic infrared background leakage mitigation combining upcoming ground-based telescopes
• Cosmological free-free emission from dark matter halos in the $\Lambda$CDM model
• Is there a radio excess from the decoupling of pre-recombination bremsstrahlung?
• Cosmological constraints on the decay of heavy relics into neutrinos
• Cosmic microwave background spectral distortions from Rayleigh scattering at second order
• Axion production and CMB spectral distortion in cosmological tangled magnetic field
• Probing small-scale baryon and dark matter isocurvature perturbations with cosmic microwave background anisotropies
• Spectral distortions in the decaying QCD dark matter scenario
• The Glow of Axion Quark Nugget Dark Matter: (IV) CMB Spectral and Anisotropy Signatures
• Primordial magnetic non-Gaussianity with generic vacua and detection prospects in CMB spectral distortions
• Dark matter with excitable levels