Related papers: Reionization constraints from five-year WMAP data
We present a detailed analysis of present and future Cosmic Microwave Background constraints of the value of the fine-structure constant, $\alpha$. We carry out a more detailed analysis of the WMAP first-year data, deriving state-of-the-art…
We study how uncertainty in the reionization history of the universe affects estimates of other cosmological parameters from the Cosmic Microwave Background. We analyze WMAP7 data and synthetic Planck-quality data generated using a…
Damping of magnetic fields via ambipolar diffusion and decay of magnetohydrodynamical (MHD) turbulence in the post decoupling era heats the intergalactic medium (IGM). Delayed recombination of hydrogen atoms in the IGM yields an optical…
We study contributions from inhomogeneous (patchy) reionization to arcminute scale ($1000 < \ell < 10,000$) cosmic microwave background (CMB) anisotropies. We show that inhomogeneities in the ionization fraction, rather than in the mean…
We consider the cross-correlation between free electrons and neutral hydrogen during the epoch of reionization. The free electrons are traced by the optical depth to reionization tau, while the neutral hydrogen can be observed through 21 cm…
We use high-resolution $N$-body simulations to investigate the optical depth of giant arcs with length-to-width ratio larger than 7.5 and 10 in the `standard' $\LCDM$ model with $\sigma_8=0.9$ and $\Omega_{\rm m,0}=0.3$ and a model based on…
We study the constraints that future multifrequency Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) experiments will be able to set on the metal enrichment history of the Inter Galactic Medium at the epoch of reionisation. We forecast the signal to noise…
We investigate how much the ratio of cosmic microwave background (CMB) polarization power spectra $C^{BB}_\ell/C^{EE}_\ell$ at low-$\ell$ ($\ell \lesssim 10$) depends on the process of reionization. Both such low-$\ell$ B-mode and E-mode…
Large fluctuations in the electron column density can occur during the reionization process. We investigate the possibility of deriving the electron density fluctuations through detailed mapping of the redshifted 21-cm emission from the…
CMB full-sky temperature data show a hemispherical asymmetry in power nearly aligned with the Ecliptic. In real space, this anomaly can be quantified by the temperature variance in the northern and southern Ecliptic hemispheres, with the…
Upcoming cosmic microwave background (CMB) surveys will soon make the first detection of the polarized Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, the linear polarization generated by the scattering of CMB photons on the free electrons present in collapsed…
We investigate the effect of Dark Stars (DSs) on the reionization history of the Universe, and the interplay between them and feedback due to Lyman-Werner (LW) radiation in reducing the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) optical depth to a…
We combine observational data on a dozen independent cosmic properties at high-$z$ with the information on reionization drawn from the spectra of distant luminous sources and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to constrain the…
Far infrared fine-structure transitions of CI and CII and rotational transitions of CO are used to probe hypothetical variations of the electron-to-proton mass ratio mu = m_e/m_p at the epoch of reionization (z > 6). A constraint on Delta…
With the recent measurement of full sky cosmic microwave background polarization from WMAP, key cosmological degeneracies have been broken, allowing tighter constraints to be placed on cosmological parameters inferred assuming a standard…
Cosmological parameters from WMAP 7 year data are re-analyzed by substituting a pixel-based likelihood estimator to the one delivered publicly by the WMAP team. Our pixel based estimator handles exactly intensity and polarization in a joint…
The free-electron population during the reionized epoch rescatters CMB temperature quadrupole and generates a now well-known polarization signal at large angular scales. While this contribution has been detected in the…
We summarize existing constraints on the epoch of reionization and discuss the observational probes that are sensitive to the process. We focus on the role large scale polarization can play. Polarization probes the integrated optical depth…
(Abridged) The WMAP 5-year data strongly limit deviations from the minimal LCDM model. We constrain the physics of inflation via Gaussianity, adiabaticity, the power spectrum shape, gravitational waves, and spatial curvature. We also…
High-precision measurements of the temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background radiation have been previously employed to set robust constraints on dark matter annihilation during recombination. In this work…