Recombining WMAP: constraints on ionizing and resonance radiation at recombination

Abstract

We place new constraints on sources of ionizing and resonance radiation at the epoch of the recombination process using the recent CMB temperature and polarization spectra coming from WMAP. We find that non-standard recombination scenarios are still consistent with the current data. In light of this we study the impact that such models can have on the determination of several cosmological parameters. In particular, the constraints on curvature and baryon density appear to be weakly affected by a modified recombination scheme. However, it may affect the current WMAP constraints on inflationary parameters like the spectral index and its running. Physically motivated models, like those based on primordial black hole or super heavy dark matter decay, are able to provide a good fit to the current data. Future observations in both temperature and polarization will be needed to more stringently test these models.

6 pages, 7 figures. Replaced with version accepted by Physical Review D

References in corpus (2)

• The State of the Dark Energy Equation of State
• Current constraints on Cosmological Parameters from Microwave Background Anisotropies

Cited by in corpus (33)

• Particle decays during the cosmic dark ages
• Effect of Primordial Black Holes on the Cosmic Microwave Background and Cosmological Parameter Estimates
• Detecting Dark Matter Annihilation with CMB Polarization : Signatures and Experimental Prospects
• CMB constraints on Dark Matter models with large annihilation cross-section
• Searching for Dark Matter in the CMB: A Compact Parameterization of Energy Injection from New Physics
• Updated CMB constraints on Dark Matter annihilation cross-sections
• Contraints on radiative dark-matter decay from the cosmic microwave background
• The Effects of Dark Matter Decay and Annihilation on the High-Redshift 21 cm Background
• Do We Need Stars to Reionize the Universe at High Redshifts? Early Reionization by Decaying Heavy Sterile Neutrinos
• Could the Cosmological Recombination Spectrum Help Us Understand Annihilating Dark Matter?
• The impacts of dark matter particle annihilation on recombination and the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background
• Reionisation, chemical enrichment and seed black holes from the first stars: is Population III important?
• Constraining dark matter late-time energy injection: decays and p-wave annihilations
• Measuring $\alpha$ in the Early Universe: CMB Polarization, Reionization and the Fisher Matrix Analysis
• Decaying particles and the reionization history of the Universe
• Reionization - A probe for the stellar population and the physics of the early universe
• WMAP Constraints on Decaying Cold Dark Matter
• The Cosmic Microwave Background and the Ionization History of the Universe
• Estimating the impact of recombination uncertainties on the cosmological parameter constraints from cosmic microwave background experiments
• Early Annihilation and Diffuse Backgrounds in 1/v WIMP models
• Beyond the Damping Tail: Cross-Correlating the Kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect with Cosmic Shear
• From Cavendish to PLANCK: Constraining Newton's Gravitational Constant with CMB Temperature and Polarization Anisotropy
• Is there a need and another way to measure the Cosmic Microwave Background temperature more accurately?
• CMB and 21-cm Signals for Dark Matter with a Long-Lived Excited State
• Decaying Superheavy Dark Matter and Subgalactic Structure of the Universe
• Delayed Recombination and Cosmic Parameters
• Cosmological constraints in the presence of ionizing and resonance radiation at recombination
• Delayed Recombination and Standard Rulers
• Right-Handed Neutrino Dark Matter with Forbidden Annihilation
• Self-annihilating dark matter and the CMB: reionizing the Universe and constraining cross sections
• Dark Matter Annihilation via Breit-Wigner Enhancement with Heavier Mediator
• Unplugging the Universe: the neglected electromagnetic consequence of decoupling
• Spherical Gravitational Collapse of Annihilating Dark Matter and the Minimum Mass of CDM Black Holes