Molecular signals from primordial clouds at high redshift

Abstract

The possibility to detect cosmological signals from the post-recombination Universe is one of the main aims of modern cosmology. In a previous paper we emphasized the role that elastic resonant scattering through LiH molecules can have in dumping primary CBR anisotropies and raising secondary signals. Here we extend our analysis to all the evolutionary stages of a primordial cloud, starting with the linear phase, through the turn-around and to the non linear collapse. We have done calculations for proto-clouds in a CDM scenario and, more generally, for a set of clouds with various masses and various turn-around redshifts, in this case without referring to any particular structure formation scenario. We found that the first phase of collapse, for $t/t_{free-fall}=0.05÷0.2$ is the best one for simultaneous detection of the first two LiH rotational lines. The observational frequency falls between 30 and 250 GHz and the line width $\frac{\Delta \nu }{\nu }$ is between $10^{-5}$ and $10^{-4}$. As far as we know this is the most favourable process to detect primordial clouds before they start star formation processes.

26 pages, uuencoded compressed postscript, 7 figures included. Accepted for publication in Ap. J

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