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Register a new userObserving the redshifted 21 cm signal around a bright QSO at $zsim 10$
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We use hydrodynamics and radiative transfer simulations to study the 21~cm signal around a bright QSO at $z sim 10$. Due to its powerful UV and X-ray radiation, the QSO quickly increases the extent of the fully ionized bubble produced by the pre-existing stellar type sources, in addition to partially ionize and heat the surrounding gas. As expected, a longer QSO lifetime, $t_{rm QSO}$, results in a 21~cm signal in emission located at increasingly larger angular radii, $theta$, and covering a wider range of $theta$. Similar features can be obtained with a higher galactic emissivity efficiency, $f_{rm UV}$, so that determining the origin of a large ionized bubble (i.e. QSO vs stars) is not straightforward. Such degeneracy could be reduced by taking advantage of the finite light traveltime effect, which is expected to affect an HII region produced by a QSO differently from one created by stellar type sources. From an observational point of view, we find that the 21 cm signal around a QSO at various $t_{rm QSO}$ could be detected by SKA1-low with a high signal-noise ratio (S/N). As a reference, for $t_{rm QSO} = 10,rm Myr$, a S/N $sim 8$ is expected assuming that no pre-heating of the IGM has taken place due to high-$z$ energetic sources, while it can reach value above 10 in case of pre-heating. Observations of the 21~cm signal from the environment of a high-$z$ bright QSO could then be used to set constraints on its lifetime, as well as to reduce the degeneracy between $f_{rm UV}$ and $t_{rm QSO}$.
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We use the observed unresolved cosmic X-ray background (CXRB) in the 0.5-2 keV band and existing upper limits on the 21-cm power spectrum to constrain the high-redshift population of X-ray sources, focusing on their effect on the thermal history of the Universe and the cosmic 21-cm signal. Because the properties of these sources are poorly constrained, we consider hot gas, X-ray binaries and mini-quasars (i.e., sources with soft or hard X-ray spectra) as possible candidates. We find that (1) the soft-band CXRB sets an upper limit on the X-ray efficiency of sources that existed before the end of reionization, which is one-to-two orders of magnitude higher than typically assumed efficiencies, (2) hard sources are more effective in generating the CXRB than the soft ones, (3) the commonly-assumed limit of saturated heating is not valid during the first half of reionization in the case of hard sources, with any allowed value of X-ray efficiency, (4) the maximal allowed X-ray efficiency sets a lower limit on the depth of the absorption trough in the global 21-cm signal and an upper limit on the height of the emission peak, while in the 21-cm power spectrum it sets a minimum amplitude and frequency for the high-redshift peaks, and (5) the existing upper limit on the 21-cm power spectrum sets a lower limit on the X-ray efficiency for each model. When combined with the 21-cm global signal, the CXRB will be useful for breaking degeneracies and helping constrain the nature of high-redshift heating sources.
Observations of the EoR with the 21-cm hyperfine emission of neutral hydrogen (HI) promise to open an entirely new window onto the formation of the first stars, galaxies and accreting black holes. In order to characterize the weak 21-cm signal, we need to develop imaging techniques which can reconstruct the extended emission very precisely. Here, we present an inversion technique for LOFAR baselines at NCP, based on a Bayesian formalism with optimal spatial regularization, which is used to reconstruct the diffuse foreground map directly from the simulated visibility data. We notice the spatial regularization de-noises the images to a large extent, allowing one to recover the 21-cm power-spectrum over a considerable $k_{perp}-k_{para}$ space in the range of $0.03,{rm Mpc^{-1}}<k_{perp}<0.19,{rm Mpc^{-1}}$ and $0.14,{rm Mpc^{-1}}<k_{para}<0.35,{rm Mpc^{-1}}$ without subtracting the noise power-spectrum. We find that, in combination with using the GMCA, a non-parametric foreground removal technique, we can mostly recover the spherically average power-spectrum within $2sigma$ statistical fluctuations for an input Gaussian random rms noise level of $60 , {rm mK}$ in the maps after 600 hrs of integration over a $10 , {rm MHz}$ bandwidth.
The upcoming radio interferometer Square Kilometre Array (SKA) is expected to directly detect the redshifted 21-cm signal from the neutral hydrogen present during the Cosmic Dawn. Temperature fluctuations from X-ray heating of the neutral intergalactic medium can dominate the fluctuations in the 21-cm signal from this time. This heating depends on the abundance, clustering, and properties of the X-ray sources present, which remain highly uncertain. We present a suite of three new large-volume, 349,Mpc a side, fully numerical radiative transfer simulations including QSO-like sources, extending the work previously presented in Ross et al. (2017). The results show that our QSOs have a modest contribution to the heating budget, yet significantly impact the 21-cm signal. Initially, the power spectrum is boosted on large scales by heating from the biased QSO-like sources, before decreasing on all scales. Fluctuations from images of the 21-cm signal with resolutions corresponding to SKA1-Low at the appropriate redshifts are well above the expected noise for deep integrations, indicating that imaging could be feasible for all the X-ray source models considered. The most notable contribution of the QSOs is a dramatic increase in non-Gaussianity of the signal, as measured by the skewness and kurtosis of the 21-cm probability distribution functions. However, in the case of late Lyman-$alpha$ saturation, this non-Gaussianity could be dramatically decreased particularly when heating occurs earlier. We conclude that increased non-Gaussianity is a promising signature of rare X-ray sources at this time, provided that Lyman-$alpha$ saturation occurs before heating dominates the 21-cm signal.
The bispectrum can quantify the non-Gussianity present in the redshifted 21-cm signal produced by the neutral hydrogen (HI) during the epoch of reionization (EoR). Motivated by this, we perform a comprehensive study of the EoR 21-cm bispectrum using simulated signals. Given a model of reionization, we demonstrate the behaviour of the bispectrum for all unique triangles in $k$ space. For ease of identification of the unique triangles, we parametrize the $k$-triangle space with two parameters, namely the ratio of the two arms of the triangle ($n=k_2/k_1$) and the cosine of the angle between them ($cos{theta}$). Furthermore, for the first time, we quantify the impact of the redshift space distortions (RSD) on the spherically averaged EoR 21-cm bispectrum in the entire unique triangle space. We find that the real space signal bispectra for small and intermediate $k_1$-triangles ($k_1 leq 0.6 ,{rm Mpc^{-1}}$) is negative in most of the unique triangle space. It takes a positive sign for squeezed, stretched and linear $k_1$-triangles, specifically for large $k_1$ values ($k_1 geq 0.6 ,{rm Mpc^{-1}}$). The RSD affects both the sign and magnitude of the bispectra significantly. It changes (increases/decreases) the magnitude of the bispectra by $50-100%$ without changing its sign (mostly) during the entire period of the EoR for small and intermediate $k_1$-triangles. For larger $k_1$-triangles, RSD affects the magnitude by $100-200%$ and also flips the sign from negative to positive. We conclude that it is important to take into account the impact of RSD for a correct interpretation of the EoR 21-cm bispectra.
One of the most promising approaches for studying reionization is to use the redshifted 21 cm line. Early generations of redshifted 21 cm surveys will not, however, have the sensitivity to make detailed maps of the reionization process, and will instead focus on statistical measurements. Here we show that it may nonetheless be possible to {em directly identify ionized regions} in upcoming data sets by applying suitable filters to the noisy data. The locations of prominent minima in the filtered data correspond well with the positions of ionized regions. In particular, we corrupt semi-numeric simulations of the redshifted 21 cm signal during reionization with thermal noise at the level expected for a 500 antenna tile version of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), and mimic the degrading effects of foreground cleaning. Using a matched filter technique, we find that the MWA should be able to directly identify ionized regions despite the large thermal noise. In a plausible fiducial model in which ~20% of the volume of the Universe is neutral at z ~ 7, we find that a 500-tile MWA may directly identify as many as ~150 ionized regions in a 6 MHz portion of its survey volume and roughly determine the size of each of these regions. This may, in turn, allow interesting multi-wavelength follow-up observations, comparing galaxy properties inside and outside of ionized regions. We discuss how the optimal configuration of radio antenna tiles for detecting ionized regions with a matched filter technique differs from the optimal design for measuring power spectra. These considerations have potentially important implications for the design of future redshifted 21 cm surveys.
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