A very extended reionization epoch ?
arXiv:astro-ph/0506486 · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.09610.x
Abstract
The recent observations of cross temperature-polarization power spectra of the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) made by the WMAP satellite are in better agreement with a high value of the Thomson scattering optical depth τ\approx 0.17. This value is close to τ= 0.3, which is taken as the upper limit in the parameter extraction analysis made by the WMAP team. However, models with τ\sim 0.3 provide a good fit to current CMB data and are not significantly excluded when combined with Large Scale Structure data. By making use of a self-consistent reionization model, we verify the astrophysical feasibility of models with τ\sim 0.3. It turns out that current data on various observations related to the thermal and ionization history of the intergalactic medium are not able to rule out τ\sim 0.3. The possibility of a very extended reionization epoch can significantly undermine the WMAP constraints on crucial cosmological parameters such as the Hubble constant, the spectral index of primordial fluctuations and the amplitude of dark matter clustering.
Accepted for publication in MNRAS. Revised to match the accepted version
References in corpus (45)
- First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Determination of Cosmological Parameters
- First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Preliminary Maps and Basic Results
- Cosmological parameters from SDSS and WMAP
- Cosmological parameters from CMB and other data: a Monte-Carlo approach
- Final Results from the Hubble Space Telescope Key Project to Measure the Hubble Constant
- The 3D power spectrum of galaxies from the SDSS
- First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Implications for Inflation
- Using the Evolution of Clusters to Constrain Omega
- Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) First Year Observations: TE Polarization
- First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Angular Power Spectrum
- First Year Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Observations: Parameter Estimation Methodology
- The Sunyaev-Zel'dovich angular power spectrum as a probe of cosmological parameters
- The Deuterium Abundance Towards Q1009+2956
- Extended Mosaic Observations with the Cosmic Background Imager
- The Universe Was Reionized Twice
- Early reionization by miniquasars
- X-ray Preionisation Powered by Accretion on the First Black Holes. I: a Model for the WMAP Polarisation Measurement
- Early Reionization by the First Galaxies
- The Thermal Memory of Reionization History
- The Evolution of the Intergalactic Medium Transmission to Redshift Six
- Cosmic Shear Statistics and Cosmology
- Power spectrum normalization from the local abundance of rich clusters of galaxies
- Infrared Emission from the Radio Supernebula in NGC 5253: A Proto-Globular Cluster?
- Cosmic Reionisation by Stellar Sources: Population III Stars
- Cosmic Reionisation by Stellar Sources: Population II Stars
- Was the Universe Reionized by Massive Population-III Stars?
- A Limit from the X-ray Background on the Contribution of Quasars to Reionization
- Implications of WMAP Observations On the Population III Star Formation Processes
- The Imprint of the Cosmic Dark Ages on the Near Infrared Background
- The Cosmic Infrared Background at 1.25 microns and 2.2 microns using DIRBE and 2MASS: a contribution not due to galaxies ?
- Joint Cosmic Shear Measurements with the Keck and William Herschel Telescopes
- Observables sensitive to absolute neutrino masses: Constraints and correlations from world neutrino data
- Constraining neutrino physics with BBN and CMBR
- Experimental Constraints on Self-consistent Reionization Models
- X-ray Clusters of Galaxies as Tracers of Structure in the Universe
- Cluster abundance normalization from observed mass-temperature relation
- Cosmic Shear and Power Spectrum Normalization with the Hubble Space Telescope
- Reionisation, chemical enrichment and seed black holes from the first stars: is Population III important?
- Constraining the Matter Power Spectrum Normalization using the SDSS/RASS and REFLEX Cluster surveys
- DIRBE Minus 2MASS: Confirming the Cosmic Infrared Background at 2.2 Microns
- Evolving Spectra of Pop III Stars: Consequences for Cosmological Reionization
- Reionization, SLOAN, and WMAP: is the Picture Consistent?
- Is There a Missing Galaxy Problem at High Redshift?
- First Stars Contribution to the Near Infrared Background Fluctuations
- The Angular Power Spectrum of the First-Year WMAP Data Reanalysed