Studying topological structure in the epoch of reionization with 3D-Minkowski functionals of 21cm line fluctuations [CEA]

http://arxiv.org/abs/1602.02351


The brightness temperature of redshifted 21cm line brings rich information on the IGM (Inter Galactic Medium) through the Dark Ages to the Epoch of Reionization(EoR). While the power spectrum is a useful tool to statistically investigate the 21cm signal, it is not sufficient to fully understand the 21cm brightness temperature field because it is expected to be highly non-gaussian distribution. Minkowski Functionals (MFs) are a promising tool to extract non-gaussian feature of the 21cm signal and will give topological information such as morphology of ionized bubbles. The ionized bubbles make typical image on the map but the brightness temperature also consists of the matter density and the spin temperature fluctuations. In this work, we study the 21cm line signal in detail with MFs. To promote understanding of basic features of the 21cm signal, we calculate the MFs of the components which contribute to the brightness temperature fluctuations. We find that the structure of the brightness temperature mainly depends on the ionized fraction on spin temperature. The general property which is independent of bubble shape is also found out by using different reionization models. In addition, the MFs are sensitive to the parameter which is related to topology of ionized bubbles and we consider the possibility of constraining parameters with the MFs of future 21cm-line signal observations.

Read this paper on arXiv…

S. Yoshiura, H. Shimabukuro, K. Takahashi, et. al.
Tue, 9 Feb 16
37/63

Comments: 10 pages, 9 figures