A Foreground Masking Strategy for [CII] Intensity Mapping Experiments Using Galaxies Selected by Stellar Mass and Redshift

Abstract

Intensity mapping provides a unique means to probe the epoch of reionization (EoR), when the neutral intergalactic medium was ionized by the energetic photons emitted from the first galaxies. The [CII] 158$\mu$m fine-structure line is typically one of the brightest emission lines of star-forming galaxies and thus a promising tracer of the global EoR star-formation activity. However, [CII] intensity maps at $6\lesssim z\lesssim 8$ are contaminated by interloping CO rotational line emission ($3\le J_{\mathrm{upp}}\le 6$) from lower-redshift galaxies. Here we present a strategy to remove the foreground contamination in upcoming [CII] intensity mapping experiments, guided by a model of CO emission from foreground galaxies. The model is based on empirical measurements of the mean and scatter of the total infrared luminosities of galaxies at $z<3$ and with stellar masses $M_{\ast }>10^8{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$ selected in $K$-band from the COSMOS/UltraVISTA survey, which can be converted to CO line strengths. For a mock field of the Tomographic Ionized-carbon Mapping Experiment (TIME), we find that masking out the "voxels" (spectral-spatial elements) containing foreground galaxies identified using an optimized CO flux threshold results in a $z$-dependent criterion $m_{\mathrm{K}}^{\mathrm{AB}}\lesssim 22$ (or $M_{\ast }\gtrsim 10^9{\mathrm{M}}_{\odot }$) at $z<1$ and makes a [CII]/CO${}_{\mathrm{tot}}$ power ratio of $\gtrsim 10$ at $k=0.1$ $h$/Mpc achievable, at the cost of a moderate $\lesssim 8\%$ loss of total survey volume.

14 figures, 4 tables, re-submitted to ApJ after addressing reviewer's comments. Comments welcome

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