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

Abstract

The evolution of large-scale structure, galaxies and the intergalactic medium (IGM) during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) can be probed by upcoming Line Intensity Mapping (LIM) experiments, which sample in redshift and direction without needing to resolve individual galaxies. We predict the intensity and sources of hydrogen H$\alpha$ emission, dominated by radiative recombination following ionization by UV from the same massive stars that caused reionization, down to redshift 4.6, using the largest fully-coupled, radiation-hydro simulation of galaxy formation and reionization to date, Cosmic Dawn (CoDa) III. We compute the mean intensity and Voxel Intensity Distribution (VID) vs. redshift, including the relative contributions of galaxies and IGM. This will provide mock data to guide and interpret LIM experiments such as NASA's SPHEREx and proposed Cosmic Dawn Intensity Mapper (CDIM).

4 pages, 1 figure, published in RNAAS

References in corpus (3)

• A radiative transfer scheme for cosmological reionization based on a local Eddington tensor
• Intensity mapping of H-alpha, H-beta, [OII] and [OIII] lines at z<5
• Insights from probability distribution functions of intensity maps