Partially ionizing the universe by decaying particles

Abstract

We show that UV photons produced by decaying particles can partially reionize the universe and explain the large optical depth observed by Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe. Together with UV fluxes from early formed stars and quasars, it is possible that the universe is fully ionized at z \lesssim 6 and partially ionized at z \gtrsim 6 as observed by Sloan Digital Sky Survey for large parameter space of the decaying particle. This scenario will be discriminated by future observations, especially by the EE polarization power spectrum of cosmic microwave background radiation.

arXiv comment5 pages, 6 postscript figures included

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Cited by in corpus (25)

• Particle decays during the cosmic dark ages
• Dark Matter and Background Light
• Impact of dark matter decays and annihilations on reionization
• Relic keV sterile neutrinos and reionization
• The Darkest Hour Before Dawn: Contributions to Cosmic Reionization from Dark Matter Annihilation and Decay
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• The impacts of dark matter particle annihilation on recombination and the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background
• Model-independent constraints on reionization from large-scale CMB polarization
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• Early Annihilation and Diffuse Backgrounds in 1/v WIMP models
• Cosmological and astrophysical probes of dark baryons
• Reionization and dark matter decay
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• CMB polarization constraints on radiative feedback
• Early reionization by decaying particles and cosmic microwave background radiation
• Constraints on Light Dark Matter from Big Bang Nucleosynthesis
• Neutralino Annihilations and the Gas Temperature in the Dark Ages
• Early reionization by decaying particles in the light of three year WMAP data
• Cosmic Reionization and the First Nonlinear Structures in the Universe
• Cosmology with Light Axions from Technicolor
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