Insights from probability distribution functions of intensity maps

Abstract

In the next few years, intensity-mapping surveys that target lines such as CO, Ly$\alpha$, and CII stand to provide powerful probes of high-redshift astrophysics. However, these line emissions are highly non-Gaussian, and so the typical power-spectrum methods used to study these maps will leave out a significant amount of information. We propose a new statistic, the probability distribution of voxel intensities, which can access this extra information. Using a model of a CO intensity map at $z\sim 3$ as an example, we demonstrate that this voxel intensity distribution (VID) provides substantial constraining power beyond what is obtainable from the power spectrum alone. We find that a future survey similar to the planned COMAP Full experiment could constrain the CO luminosity function to order $\sim 10\%$. We also explore the effects of contamination from continuum emission, interloper lines, and gravitational lensing on our constraints and find that the VID statistic retains significant constraining power even in pessimistic scenarios.

arXiv comment14 pages, 13 figures, submitted to MNRAS

References in corpus (33)

• The Global Schmidt Law in Star Forming Galaxies
• LOFAR: The LOw-Frequency ARray
• The Average Star Formation Histories of Galaxies in Dark Matter Halos from z=0-8
• Stable clustering, the halo model and nonlinear cosmological power spectra
• The Murchison Widefield Array: the Square Kilometre Array Precursor at low radio frequencies
• Reionization and Cosmology with 21 cm Fluctuations
• Cosmological-Parameter Determination with Microwave Background Maps
• PAPER-64 Constraints on Reionization: The 21cm Power Spectrum at z=8.4
• Astrophysical and Cosmological Information from Large-scale sub-mm Surveys of Extragalactic Sources
• Measuring the galaxy power spectrum with future redshift surveys
• Cosmology with the SPHEREX All-Sky Spectral Survey
• Intensity Mapping of the [CII] Fine Structure Line during the Epoch of Reionization
• Probability Distribution Function of Cosmological Density Fluctuations from Gaussian Initial Condition: Comparison of One- and Two-point Log-normal Model Predictions with N-body Simulations
• Measuring the 3D Clustering of Undetected Galaxies Through Cross Correlation of their Cumulative Flux Fluctuations from Multiple Spectral Lines
• Intensity mapping of [CII] from early galaxies
• On Removing Interloper Contamination from Intensity Mapping Power Spectrum Measurements
• Deep 3 GHz Number Counts from a P(D) Fluctuation Analysis
• Non-Gaussianity and the Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies
• Carbon Monoxide Intensity Mapping at Moderate Redshifts
• Sub-mm Emission Line Deep Fields: CO and [CII] Luminosity Functions out to z = 6
• Spectral Line De-confusion in an Intensity Mapping Survey
• Cosmology with intensity mapping techniques using atomic and molecular lines
• Foreground contamination in Ly-alpha intensity mapping during the epoch of reionization
• Demonstrating the Feasibility of Line Intensity Mapping Using Mock Data of Galaxy Clustering from Simulations
• A General Formulation of the Source Confusion Statistics and Application to Infrared Galaxy Surveys
• Lensing Magnification: Implications for Counts of Submillimeter Galaxies and SZ Clusters
• Studying 21cm power spectrum with one-point statistics
• The Difference PDF of 21-cm Fluctuations: A Powerful Statistical Tool for Probing Cosmic Reionization
• Looking for Population III stars with He II line intensity mapping
• The high redshift star-formation history from carbon-monoxide intensity maps
• Feeding cosmic star formation: Exploring high-redshift molecular gas with CO intensity mapping
• Observational challenges in Ly-alpha intensity mapping
• Prospects for detecting CII emission during the Epoch of Reionization

Cited by in corpus (40)

• Line-Intensity Mapping: Theory Review
• A User's Guide to Extracting Cosmological Information from Line-Intensity Maps
• COMAP Early Science: I. Overview
• Multi-tracer intensity mapping: Cross-correlations, Line noise & Decorrelation
• Magnification and evolution biases in large-scale structure surveys
• Probing Cosmic Reionization and Molecular Gas Growth with TIME
• Joint power spectrum and voxel intensity distribution forecast on the CO luminosity function with COMAP
• Probing the Blue Axion with Cosmic Optical Background Anisotropies
• Evidence for CII diffuse line emission at redshift $z\sim 2.6$
• Strategies to Detect Dark-Matter Decays with Line-Intensity Mapping
• Multitracer cosmological line intensity mapping mock lightcone simulation
• Phase-Space Spectral Line De-confusion in Intensity Mapping
• Intensity mapping cross-correlations II: HI halo models including shot noise
• Studying high-z galaxies with [CII] intensity mapping
• COMAP Early Science: VII. Prospects for CO Intensity Mapping at Reionization
• Detecting the radiative decay of the cosmic neutrino background with line-intensity mapping
• One-point fluctuation analysis of the high-energy neutrino sky
• COMAP Early Science: IV. Power Spectrum Methodology and Results
• A model of spectral line broadening in signal forecasts for line-intensity mapping experiments
• HInet: Generating neutral hydrogen from dark matter with neural networks
• Canceling out intensity mapping foregrounds
• Deep Learning for Line Intensity Mapping Observations: Information Extraction from Noisy Maps
• On estimating the cosmic molecular gas density from CO Line Intensity Mapping observations
• Extragalactic Science with the Experiment for Cryogenic Large-aperture Intensity Mapping
• Unveiling cosmological information on small scales with line intensity mapping
• Optimally Mapping Large-Scale Structures with Luminous Sources
• Extreme Spheres: Counts-in-cells for 21cm intensity mapping
• Exploration of 3D wavelet scattering transform coefficients for line-intensity mapping measurements
• Deep learning reconstruction of three-dimensional galaxy distributions with intensity mapping observations
• Emission-line Stacking of 21cm Intensity Maps with MeerKLASS: Inference Pipeline and Application to the L-band Deep-field Data
• The deconvolved distribution estimator: enhancing reionisation-era CO line-intensity mapping analyses with a cross-correlation analogue for one-point statistics
• Characteristic Functions for Cosmological Cross-Correlations
• Towards Accurate Modeling of Line-Intensity Mapping One-Point Statistics: Including Extended Profiles
• Leveraging cross-correlations and linear covariance-based filtering for line-intensity map reconstructions at linear scales
• Scatter in the star formation rate-halo mass relation: secondary bias and its impact on line-intensity mapping
• Mapping Large-Scale-Structure Evolution over Cosmic Times
• Line Intensity Mapping Prediction from the Cosmic Dawn (CoDa) III Simulation for H$\alpha$ from Galaxies and the Intergalactic Medium during the Epoch of Reionization
• The informativeness of [C II] line-intensity mapping as a probe of the H I content and metallicity of galaxies at the end of reionization
• Probing the large-scale structure with 21cm-galaxy cross-bispectrum: Estimates from simulations and forecasts for upcoming cosmological surveys
• Cross-correlations between mm-wave line-intensity mapping and weak lensing surveys: preliminary consideration of long-term prospects