INTENSITY MAPPING WITH CARBON MONOXIDE EMISSION LINES AND THE REDSHIFTED 21 cm LINE

2011/04/25 by Adam Lidz, Steven R. Furlanetto, S. Peng Oh +4 · 4 citations
Physics and Astronomy · #Astronomy and Astrophysical Research #Astrophysics and Star Formation Studies #Emission spectrum #Galaxies: Formation, Evolution, Phenomena #Galaxy #Intensity mapping #Line (geometry) #Redshift #Reionization #Spectral density #Star formation #astro-ph.CO

paper · pdf · doi:10.1088/0004-637x/741/2/70

19 pages, 8 figures, submitted to ApJ

arxiv created 2011/04/25 · openalex publication_date 2011/10/18 · arxiv updated 2015/05/28 · openalex created_date 2016/06/24 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05

Abstract

We quantify the prospects for using emission lines from rotational transitions of the CO molecule to perform an "intensity mapping" observation at high redshift during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). The aim of CO intensity mapping is to observe the combined CO emission from many unresolved galaxies, to measure the spatial fluctuations in this emission, and to use this as a tracer of large-scale structure at very early times in the history of our universe. This measurement would help determine the properties of molecular clouds—the sites of star formation—in the very galaxies that reionize the universe. We further consider the possibility of cross-correlating CO intensity maps with future observations of the redshifted 21 cm line. The cross spectrum is less sensitive to foreground contamination than the auto power spectra, and can therefore help confirm the high-redshift origin of each signal. Furthermore, the cross spectrum measurement would help extract key information about the EoR, especially regarding the size distribution of ionized regions. We discuss uncertainties in predicting the CO signal at high redshift, and discuss strategies for improving these predictions. Under favorable assumptions and feasible specifications for a CO survey mapping the CO(2–1) and CO(1–0) lines, the power spectrum of CO emission fluctuations and its cross spectrum with future 21 cm measurements from the Murchison Widefield Array are detectable at high significance.

Citations

• 21 Centimeter Tomography of the Intergalactic Medium at High Redshift
• Was the Universe Reionized at Redshift 10?
• The Sensitivity of First‐Generation Epoch of Reionization Observatories and Their Potential for Differentiating Theoretical Power Spectra
• Cosmology at Low Frequencies: The 21 cm Transition and the High-Redshift Universe
• MAPPING THE DARK MATTER FROM UV LIGHT AT HIGH REDSHIFT: AN EMPIRICAL APPROACH TO UNDERSTAND GALAXY STATISTICS
• Evolution of the Intergalactic Opacity: Implications for the Ionizing Background, Cosmic Star Formation, and Quasar Activity
• An excursion set model of hierarchical clustering: ellipsoidal collapse and the moving barrier
• Detecting the Rise and Fall of 21 cm Fluctuations with the Murchison Widefield Array
• The correlation between the distribution of galaxies and 21-cm emission at high redshifts
• THE EVOLUTION OF LYMAN LIMIT ABSORPTION SYSTEMS TO REDSHIFT SIX
• Radiative Transfer in a Clumpy Universe. III. The Nature of Cosmological Ionizing Sources
• The Cross‐Correlation of High‐Redshift 21 cm and Galaxy Surveys
• Simulations and Analytic Calculations of Bubble Growth during Hydrogen Reionization
• CMB observations and the production of chemical elements at the end of the dark ages
• Carbon monoxide line emission as a CMB foreground: tomography of the star-forming universe with different spectral resolutions
• Toward Epoch of Reionization Measurements with Wide‐Field Radio Observations
• Power Spectra for Cold Dark Matter and Its Variants
• Simulations of the formation, evolution and clustering of galaxies and quasars
• In the Beginning: The First Sources of Light and the Reionization of the Universe
• The observed ionization rate of the intergalactic medium and the ionizing emissivity at z >= 5: evidence for a photon-starved and extended epoch of reionization
• Detecting z > 10 Objects through Carbon, Nitrogen, and Oxygen Emission Lines

Cited by

• Antisymmetric Cross-correlation between H i and CO Line Intensity Maps as a New Probe of Cosmic Reionization
• Optimally Mapping Large-scale Structures with Luminous Sources
• Feeding cosmic star formation: exploring high-redshift molecular gas with CO intensity mapping
• Cosmology with intensity mapping techniques using atomic and molecular lines