THE IMPACT OF THE SUPERSONIC BARYON-DARK MATTER VELOCITY DIFFERENCE ON THE z {approx} 20 21 cm BACKGROUND
- Department of Astronomy, University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)
Recently, Tseliakhovich and Hirata showed that during the cosmic Dark Ages the baryons were typically moving supersonically with respect to the dark matter with a spatially variable Mach number. Such supersonic motion may source shocks that inhomogeneously heat the universe. This motion may also suppress star formation in the first halos. Even a small amount of coupling of the 21 cm signal to this motion has the potential to vastly enhance the 21 cm brightness temperature fluctuations at 15 {approx}< z {approx}< 40, as well as to imprint distinctive acoustic oscillations in this signal. We present estimates for the size of this coupling, which we calibrate with a suite of cosmological simulations of the high-redshift universe using the GADGET and Enzo codes. Our simulations, discussed in detail in a companion paper, are initialized to self-consistently account for gas pressure and the dark matter-baryon relative velocity, v {sub bc} (in contrast to prior simulations). We find that the supersonic velocity difference dramatically suppresses structure formation on 10-100 comoving kpc scales, it sources shocks throughout the universe, and it impacts the accretion of gas onto the first star-forming minihalos (even for halo masses as large as 10{sup 7} M {sub Sun }). However, prior to reheating by astrophysical sources, we find that the v {sub bc}-sourced temperature fluctuations can contribute only as much as Almost-Equal-To 10% of the fluctuations in the 21 cm signal. We do find that v {sub bc} in certain scenarios could source an O(1) component in the power spectrum of the 21 cm background on observable scales via the X-ray (but not ultraviolet) backgrounds produced once the first stars formed. In a scenario in which {approx}10{sup 6} M {sub Sun} minihalos reheated the universe via their X-ray backgrounds, we find that the pre-reionization 21 cm signal would be larger than previously anticipated and exhibit more significant acoustic features. Such features would be a direct probe of the first stars and black holes. In addition, we show that structure formation shocks are unable to heat the universe sufficiently to erase a strong 21 cm absorption trough at z {approx} 20 that is found in most models of the sky-averaged 21 cm intensity.
- OSTI ID:
- 22086384
- Journal Information:
- Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 760, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
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