中国科学院机构知识库网格
Chinese Academy of Sciences Institutional Repositories Grid
THE 21 cm FOREST AS A PROBE OF THE REIONIZATION AND THE TEMPERATURE OF THE INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM

文献类型:期刊论文

作者Xu, Yidong1,2; Chen, Xuelei2; Fan, Zuhui1; Trac, Hy3; Cen, Renyue4
刊名ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL
出版日期2009-10-20
卷号704期号:2页码:1396-1404
关键词cosmology: theory intergalactic medium quasars: absorption lines
英文摘要Using high-redshift radio sources as background, the 21 cm forest observations probe the neutral hydrogen absorption signatures of early structures along the lines of sight. Directly sensitive to the spin temperature of the hydrogen atoms, it complements the 21 cm tomography observations, and provides information on the temperature as well as the ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM). We use a radiative transfer simulation to investigate the 21 cm forest signals during the epoch of reionization. We first confirmed that the optical depth and equivalent width (EW) are good representations of the ionization and thermal state of the IGM. The features selected by their relative optical depth are excellent tracers of ionization fields, and the features selected by their absolute optical depth are very sensitive to the IGM temperature, so the IGM temperature information could potentially be extracted from 21 cm forest observation, thus breaking a degeneracy in 21 cm tomographic observation. With the EW statistics, we predict some observational consequences for 21 cm forest. From the distributions of EWs and the number evolution of absorbers and leakers with different EWs, we see clearly the cosmological evolution of ionization state of the IGM. The number density of potentially observable features decreases rapidly with increasing gas temperature. The sensitivity of the proposed EW statistic to the IGM temperature makes it a unique and potentially powerful probe of reionization. Missing small-scale structures, such as small filaments and minihalos that are unresolved in our current simulation, and lack of an accurate calculation of the IGM temperature, however, likely have rendered the presented signals quantitatively inaccurate. Finally, we discuss the requirements of the background radio sources for such observations, and find that signals with equivalent widths larger than 1 kHz are hopeful to be detected.
收录类别SCI
语种英语
WOS记录号WOS:000270486200031
源URL[http://ir.bao.ac.cn/handle/114a11/7486]  
专题国家天文台_星系宇宙学研究部
作者单位1.Peking Univ, Sch Phys, Dept Astron, Beijing 100871, Peoples R China
2.CAS, Natl Astron Observ China, Beijing 100012, Peoples R China
3.Harvard Univ, Harvard Smithsonian Ctr Astrophys, Cambridge, MA 02138 USA
4.Princeton Univ, Dept Astrophys Sci, Princeton, NJ 08544 USA
推荐引用方式
GB/T 7714
Xu, Yidong,Chen, Xuelei,Fan, Zuhui,et al. THE 21 cm FOREST AS A PROBE OF THE REIONIZATION AND THE TEMPERATURE OF THE INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM[J]. ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL,2009,704(2):1396-1404.
APA Xu, Yidong,Chen, Xuelei,Fan, Zuhui,Trac, Hy,&Cen, Renyue.(2009).THE 21 cm FOREST AS A PROBE OF THE REIONIZATION AND THE TEMPERATURE OF THE INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM.ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL,704(2),1396-1404.
MLA Xu, Yidong,et al."THE 21 cm FOREST AS A PROBE OF THE REIONIZATION AND THE TEMPERATURE OF THE INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM".ASTROPHYSICAL JOURNAL 704.2(2009):1396-1404.

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来源:国家天文台

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