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Characterizing the epoch of reionization with the small-scale CMB: Constraints on the optical depth and duration

Journal Article · · Physical Review D
 [1];  [2]
  1. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States); Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
  2. Premier Inst. for Theoretical Physics, Waterloo, ON (United States)
+ Show Author Affiliations
Patchy reionization leaves a number of imprints on the small-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature fluctuations, the largest of which is the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ), the Doppler shift of CMB photons scattering off moving electrons in ionized bubbles. It has long been known that in the CMB power spectrum, this imprint of reionization is largely degenerate with the kSZ signal produced by late-time galaxies and clusters, thus limiting our ability to constrain reionization. Following Smith & Ferraro (2017), it is possible to isolate the reionization contribution in a model independent way, by looking at the large scale modulation of the small scale CMB power spectrum. In this paper we extend the formalism to use the full shape information of the small scale power spectrum (rather than just its broadband average), and argue that this is necessary to break the degeneracy between the optical depth τ and parameters setting the duration of reionization. In particular, we show that the next generation of CMB experiments could achieve up to a factor of 3 improvement on the optical depth τ and at the same time, constrain the duration of reionization to ~25%. Finally, this can help tighten the constrains on neutrino masses, which will be limited by our knowledge of τ, and shed light on the physical processes responsible for reionization.
Research Organization:
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE Office of Science (SC)
Grant/Contract Number:
AC02-05CH11231
OSTI ID:
1616070
Journal Information:
Physical Review D, Journal Name: Physical Review D Journal Issue: 12 Vol. 98; ISSN PRVDAQ; ISSN 2470-0010
Publisher:
American Physical Society (APS)Copyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Cited By (3)

The Simons Observatory: science goals and forecasts journal February 2019
The Simons Observatory: Science goals and forecasts text January 2019
The Simons Observatory: Science goals and forecasts text January 2018

Figures / Tables (4)

FIG. 1(p. 5)figure FIG. 1
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TABLE I(p. 5)table TABLE I
FIG. 3(p. 6)figure FIG. 3

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Related Subjects

79 ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS
cosmic microwave background
cosmology