No Arabic abstract
We present a study of the impact of a bright quasar on the redshifted 21cm signal during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). Using three different cosmological radiative transfer simulations, we investigate if quasars are capable of substantially changing the size and morphology of the H II regions they are born in. We choose stellar and quasar luminosities in a way that is favourable to seeing such an effect. We find that even the most luminous of our quasar models is not able to increase the size of its native H II region substantially beyond those of large H II regions produced by clustered stellar sources alone. However, the quasar H II region is found to be more spherical. We next investigate the prospects of detecting such H II regions in the redshifted 21cm data from the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) by means of a matched filter technique. We find that H II regions with radii ~ 25 comoving Mpc or larger should have a sufficiently high detection probability for 1200 hours of integration time. Although the matched filter can in principle distinguish between more and less spherical regions, we find that when including realistic system noise this distinction can no longer be made. The strong foregrounds are found not to pose a problem for the matched filter technique. We also demonstrate that when the quasar position is known, the redshifted 21cm data can still be used to set upper limits on the ionizing photon rate of the quasar. If both the quasar position and its luminosity are known, the redshifted 21 cm data can set new constrains on quasar lifetimes.
Detection of the redshifted 21cm-line signal from neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) is complicated by intense foregrounds such as galactic synchrotron and extragalactic radio galaxies. The 21cm-Lyman-$alpha$ emitter(LAE) cross-correlation is one of the tools available to reduce the foreground effects because the foreground emission from such radio sources is statistically independent of LAE distribution. LAE surveys during the EoR at redshifts $z=6.6$ and $7.3$ are ongoing by the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC). Additionally, Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) will provide precise redshift information of the LAEs discovered by the HSC survey. In this paper, we investigate the detectability of the 21cm signal with the 21cm-LAE cross-correlation by using our improved reionization simulations. We also focus on the error budget and evaluate it quantitatively in order to consider a strategy to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, we explore an expansion of the LAE survey to suggest optimal survey parameters and show a potential to measure a characteristic size of ionized bubbles via the turnover scale of the cross-power spectrum. As a result, we find that the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) has ability to detect the cross-power spectrum signal on large scales by combining LAE Deep field survey of HSC. We also show that the sensitivity is improved dramatically at small scales by adding redshift information from the PFS measurements. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) has a potential to measure the turnover scale with an accuracy of $6times10^{-3}~{rm Mpc^{-1}}$.
Light travel time delays distort the apparent shapes of HII regions surrounding bright quasars during early stages of cosmic reionization. Individual HII regions may remain undetectable in forthcoming redshifted 21 cm experiments. However, the systematic deformation along the line of sight may be detectable statistically, either by stacking tomographic 21cm images of quasars identified, for example, by JWST, or as small-scale anisotropy in the three-dimensional 21cm power spectrum. Here we consider the detectability of this effect. The anisotropy is largest when HII regions are large and expand rapidly, and we find that if bright quasars contributed to the early stages of reionization, then they can produce significant anisotropy, on scales comparable to the typical sizes of HII regions of the bright quasars (approx. 30 Mpc and below). The effect therefore cannot be ignored when analyzing future 21cm power spectra on small scales. If 10 percent of the volume of the IGM at redshift z=10 is ionized by quasars with typical ionizing luminosity of S= 5 x 10^{56} photons/second, the distortions can enhance by more than 10 percent the 21cm power spectrum in the radial (redshift) direction, relative to the transverse directions. The level of this anisotropy exceeds that due to redshift-space distortion, and has the opposite sign. We show that on-going experiments such as MWA should be able to detect this effect. A detection would reveal the presence of bright quasars, and shed light on the ionizing yield and age of the ionizing sources, and the distribution and small-scale clumping of neutral intergalactic gas in their vicinity.
Quasars contribute to the 21-cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) primarily through their ionizing UV and X-ray emission. However, their radio continuum and Lyman-band emission also regulates the 21-cm signal in their direct environment, potentially leaving the imprint of their duty cycle. We develop a model for the radio and UV luminosity functions of quasars from the EoR, and constrain it using recent observations. Our model is consistent with the z~7.5 quasar from Banados et al 2017, and also predicts only a few quasars suitable for 21-cm forest observations (10mJy) in the sky. We exhibit a new effect on the 21-cm signal observed against the CMB: a radio-loud quasar can leave the imprint of its duty cycle on the 21-cm tomography. We apply this effect in a cosmological simulation and conclude that the effect of typical radio-loud quasars is most likely negligible in an SKA field of view. For a 1-10mJy quasar the effect is stronger though hardly observable at SKA resolution. Then we study the contribution of the lyman band Ly-alpha to Ly-beta) emission of quasars to the Wouthuisen-Field coupling. The collective effect of quasars on the 21-cm power spectrum is larger than the thermal noise at low k, though featureless. However, a distinctive pattern around the brightest quasars in an SKA field of view may be observable in the tomography, encoding the duration of their duty cycle. This pattern has a high signal-to-noise ratio for the brightest quasar in a typical SKA shallow survey.
Detecting $rm H_I$ 21cm line in the intergalactic medium (IGM) during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) suffers from foreground contamination such as Galactic synchrotron and extragalactic radio sources. Cross-correlation between the 21cm line and Lyman-$alpha$ emitter (LAE) galaxies is a powerful tool to identify the 21cm signal since the 21cm line emission has correlation with LAEs while the LAEs are statistically independent of the foregrounds. So far, the detectability of 21cm-LAE cross-power spectrum has been investigated with simple LAE models where the observed Ly$alpha$ luminosity is proportional to the dark matter halo mass. However, the previous models were inconsistent with the latest observational data of LAEs obtained with Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC). Here, we revisit the detectability of 21cm-LAE cross-power spectrum adopting a state-of-the-art LAE model consistent with all Subaru/HSC observations such as the Ly$alpha$ luminosity function, LAE angular auto-correlation, and the LAE fractions in the continuum selected galaxies. We find that resultant cross-power spectrum with the updated LAE model is reduced at small scales ($ksim 1 rm Mpc^{-1}$) compared to the simple models, while the amplitudes at large scales ($k lesssim 0.2 rm Mpc^{-1}$) are not affected so much. We conclude that the large-scale signal would be detectable with Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and HSC LAE cross-correlation but detecting the small scale signal would require an extended HSC LAE survey with an area of $sim 75 rm deg^2$ or 3000 hrs observation time of 21cm line with SKA.
Cross-correlation between the redshifted 21 cm signal and Lyman-{alpha} emitters (LAEs) is powerful tool to probe the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). Although the cross-power spectrum (PS) has an advantage of not correlating with foregrounds much brighter than the 21 cm signal, the galactic and extra-galactic foregrounds prevent detection since they contribute to the variance of the cross PS. Therefore, strategies for mitigating foregrounds are required. In this work, we study the impact of foreground avoidance on the measurement of the 21 cm-LAE cross-correlation. We then simulate the 21 cm observation as observed by the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). The point source foreground is modelled from the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey catalogue, and the diffuse foreground is evaluated using a parametric model. For LAE observations, we assume a large survey of the Subaru Hyper Supreme-Cam (HSC), with spectroscopic observations of the Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS). To predict the 21 cm signal, we employ a numerical simulation combining post processed radiative transfer and radiation hydrodynamics. Using these models, the signal-to-noise ratio of 2D PS shows the foreground contamination dominates the error of cross-PS even in the so-called `EoR window. We find that at least 99% of the point source foreground and 80% of the galactic diffuse foreground must be removed to measure the EoR signal at large scales $k<0.5 h rm Mpc^{-1}$. Additionally, a sensitivity 80 times larger than that of the MWA operating with 128 tiles and 99% of the point source foreground removal are required for a detection at small scales.