The Lyman-$α$ emitter bispectrum as a probe of reionization morphology

Fuente: arXiv
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Auteurs principaux: Maitra, Soumak, Kulkarni, Girish, Asthana, Shikhar, Bolton, James S., Haehnelt, Martin G., Keating, Laura
Format: Preprint
Publié: 2025
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author Maitra, Soumak
Kulkarni, Girish
Asthana, Shikhar
Bolton, James S.
Haehnelt, Martin G.
Keating, Laura
author_facet Maitra, Soumak
Kulkarni, Girish
Asthana, Shikhar
Bolton, James S.
Haehnelt, Martin G.
Keating, Laura
contents Ly$α$ emitters (LAEs) have now been discovered out to redshift $z=13$, and are valuable probes of the reionization history at redshifts beyond the reach of other currently available tracers. Most inferences of the neutral hydrogen fraction from LAE observations rely on one-point and two-point statistics like the luminosity function and the power spectrum. We present here an analysis of the bispectrum of high-redshift LAEs and demonstrate its sensitivity to the Epoch of Reionization. We use the Sherwood-Relics suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations post-processed with the GPU-based radiative transfer code ATON-HE to generate realistic LAE mock catalogues for a wide range of reionization models, varying the ionization history and the source populations, including contributions of AGN to hydrogen reionization. We demonstrate that the bispectrum provides greater sensitivity than the power spectrum to both the timing and spatial morphology of reionization. Using reduced-$χ^2$ analysis we further show that the bispectrum also responds more strongly to variations in source population and AGN contribution, apparently more efficiently capturing morphological features missed by two-point statistics. The redshift evolution of the bispectrum reflects the increased clustering of ionizing sources at earlier epochs. The sensitivity of the bispectrum to peculiar velocities underscores the importance of velocity corrections in comparisons to observations. Our findings demonstrate that the LAE bispectrum is a powerful higher-order statistic for probing reionization through current and future LAE surveys using telescopes such as Subaru and JWST.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2505_17188
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The Lyman-$α$ emitter bispectrum as a probe of reionization morphology
Maitra, Soumak
Kulkarni, Girish
Asthana, Shikhar
Bolton, James S.
Haehnelt, Martin G.
Keating, Laura
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
Ly$α$ emitters (LAEs) have now been discovered out to redshift $z=13$, and are valuable probes of the reionization history at redshifts beyond the reach of other currently available tracers. Most inferences of the neutral hydrogen fraction from LAE observations rely on one-point and two-point statistics like the luminosity function and the power spectrum. We present here an analysis of the bispectrum of high-redshift LAEs and demonstrate its sensitivity to the Epoch of Reionization. We use the Sherwood-Relics suite of cosmological hydrodynamical simulations post-processed with the GPU-based radiative transfer code ATON-HE to generate realistic LAE mock catalogues for a wide range of reionization models, varying the ionization history and the source populations, including contributions of AGN to hydrogen reionization. We demonstrate that the bispectrum provides greater sensitivity than the power spectrum to both the timing and spatial morphology of reionization. Using reduced-$χ^2$ analysis we further show that the bispectrum also responds more strongly to variations in source population and AGN contribution, apparently more efficiently capturing morphological features missed by two-point statistics. The redshift evolution of the bispectrum reflects the increased clustering of ionizing sources at earlier epochs. The sensitivity of the bispectrum to peculiar velocities underscores the importance of velocity corrections in comparisons to observations. Our findings demonstrate that the LAE bispectrum is a powerful higher-order statistic for probing reionization through current and future LAE surveys using telescopes such as Subaru and JWST.
title The Lyman-$α$ emitter bispectrum as a probe of reionization morphology
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Astrophysics of Galaxies
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2505.17188