Constraining the clustering and 21-cm signature of radio galaxies at cosmic dawn

Fuente: arXiv
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Main Authors: Sikder, Sudipta, Barkana, Rennan, Fialkov, Anastasia
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
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author Sikder, Sudipta
Barkana, Rennan
Fialkov, Anastasia
author_facet Sikder, Sudipta
Barkana, Rennan
Fialkov, Anastasia
contents The efficiency of radio emission is an important unknown parameter of early galaxies at cosmic dawn, as models with high efficiency have been shown to modify the cosmological 21-cm signal substantially, deepening the absorption trough and boosting the 21-cm power spectrum. Such models have been previously directly constrained by the overall extragalactic radio background as observed by ARCADE-2 and LWA-1. In this work, we constrain the clustering of high redshift radio sources by utilizing the observed upper limits on arcminute-scale anisotropy from the VLA at 4.9~GHz and ATCA at 8.7~GHz. Using a semi-numerical simulation of a plausible astrophysical model for illustration, we show that the clustering constraints on the radio efficiency are much stronger than those from the overall background intensity, by a factor that varies from 12 at redshift 7 to 30 at redshift 22. As a result, the predicted maximum depth of the global 21-cm signal is lowered by a factor of 5 (to 1700~mK), and the maximum 21-cm power spectrum peak at cosmic dawn is lowered by a factor of 24 (to $2\times 10^5$~mK$^2$). We conclude that the observed clustering is the strongest current direct constraint on such models, but strong early radio emission from galaxies remains viable for producing a strongly enhanced 21-cm signal from cosmic dawn.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2401_05865
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Constraining the clustering and 21-cm signature of radio galaxies at cosmic dawn
Sikder, Sudipta
Barkana, Rennan
Fialkov, Anastasia
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
The efficiency of radio emission is an important unknown parameter of early galaxies at cosmic dawn, as models with high efficiency have been shown to modify the cosmological 21-cm signal substantially, deepening the absorption trough and boosting the 21-cm power spectrum. Such models have been previously directly constrained by the overall extragalactic radio background as observed by ARCADE-2 and LWA-1. In this work, we constrain the clustering of high redshift radio sources by utilizing the observed upper limits on arcminute-scale anisotropy from the VLA at 4.9~GHz and ATCA at 8.7~GHz. Using a semi-numerical simulation of a plausible astrophysical model for illustration, we show that the clustering constraints on the radio efficiency are much stronger than those from the overall background intensity, by a factor that varies from 12 at redshift 7 to 30 at redshift 22. As a result, the predicted maximum depth of the global 21-cm signal is lowered by a factor of 5 (to 1700~mK), and the maximum 21-cm power spectrum peak at cosmic dawn is lowered by a factor of 24 (to $2\times 10^5$~mK$^2$). We conclude that the observed clustering is the strongest current direct constraint on such models, but strong early radio emission from galaxies remains viable for producing a strongly enhanced 21-cm signal from cosmic dawn.
title Constraining the clustering and 21-cm signature of radio galaxies at cosmic dawn
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2401.05865