The existence of a limiting wavelength for small-scale temperature fluctuations

Journal Article · Thu Jun 01 00:00:00 EDT 1989 · Astrophysical Journal; (USA)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1086/167517· OSTI ID:5508512

La, D ^[1]

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1. Pennsylvania Univ., Philadelphia (USA)

It is proposed that any small-scale temperature fluctuation measurement of the submillimeter cosmic background radiation (CBR) cannot be a reliable indicator of the physical conditions of the universe at the time of decoupling. This is due to the fact that after decoupling, Lyman continuum absorption and elastic Rayleigh scattering of photons with the ambient neutral hydrogen medium would destroy and regenerate the high-energy portion of the original blackbody continuum. Detailed analyses for these processes are shown under the assumption that decoupling occurred at z of about 1500 in an Einstein-de Sitter universe with zero cosmological constant. For any value of the baryonic fraction of Omega(Crit) ranging between 1-0.1, small-scale temperature fluctuations at wavelengths shortward of 1 mm of the 2.7 K CBR will be under strong suppression from the initial scale. 20 refs.

• OSTI ID: 5508512
• Journal Information: Astrophysical Journal; (USA), Vol. 341; ISSN 0004-637X
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

71 CLASSICAL AND QUANTUM MECHANICS
GENERAL PHYSICS
COSMOLOGICAL MODELS
RELICT RADIATION
TEMPERATURE DISTRIBUTION
BARYONS
BLACKBODY RADIATION
HYDROGEN
RAYLEIGH SCATTERING
COHERENT SCATTERING
ELECTROMAGNETIC RADIATION
ELEMENTARY PARTICLES
ELEMENTS
FERMIONS
HADRONS
MATHEMATICAL MODELS
MICROWAVE RADIATION
NONMETALS
RADIATIONS
SCATTERING
640106* - Astrophysics & Cosmology- Cosmology