Revealing the formation histories of the first stars with the cosmic near-infrared background

Sun, Guochao; Mirocha, Jordan; Mebane, Richard H.; Furlanetto, Steven R.

doi:10.1093/mnras/stab2697

Cited by 26 publications

(18 citation statements)

References 153 publications

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“…For comparison, in Section 3 we will also assess the impact of an alternative choice of parameter values with z t = 18 and σ p = 2, which yields a significantly reduced amount of Pop III star formation. While the exact star formation history of Pop III stars is highly uncertain given the lack of observations, these choices of parameters are broadly consistent with previous works taking into account indirect observational constraints and theoretical arguments of feedback regulation as shown by Sun et al (2021a). The simple prescription adopted here implicitly assumes that Pop III stars form in the same halo mass range as Pop II stars, instead of in small molecular cooling halos alone.…”

Section: Pop III Star Formationsupporting

confidence: 78%

Probing Population III IMFs with He II/H$α$ Intensity Mapping

Parsons,

Mas-Ribas,

Sun

et al. 2021

Preprint

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We demonstrate the potential of line intensity mapping to place constraints on the initial mass function (IMF) of Population III (Pop III) stars via measurements of the mean He II 1640 Å/Hα emission line ratio. We extend the 21cmFAST code with modern high-redshift galaxy formation and photoionization models, and estimate the line emission from Pop II and Pop III galaxies at redshifts 5 ≤ z ≤ 20. In our models, mean ratio values of He II/Hα 0.1 indicate top-heavy Pop III IMFs with stars of several hundred solar masses, reached at z 10 when Pop III stars dominate star formation. A next-generation space mission with capabilities moderately superior to those of CDIM will be able to probe this scenario by measuring the He II and Hα fluctuation power spectrum signals and their cross-correlation at high significance up to z ∼ 20. Moreover, regardless of the IMF, a ratio value of He II/Hα 0.01 indicates low Pop III star formation and, therefore, it signals the end of the period dominated by this stellar population. However, a detection of the corresponding He II power spectrum may be only possible for top-heavy Pop III IMFs or through cross-correlation with the stronger Hα signal. Finally, ratio values of 0.01He II/Hα 0.1 are complex to interpret because they can be driven by several competing effects. We discuss how various measurements at different redshifts and the combination of the line ratio with other probes can assist in constraining the Pop III IMF in this case.

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Section: Pop III Star Formationsupporting

confidence: 78%

Probing Population III IMFs with He II/H$α$ Intensity Mapping

Parsons,

Mas-Ribas,

Sun

et al. 2021

Preprint

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“…Forthcoming facilities such as the James Webb Space Telescope, the Roman space telescope, or Euclid are expected to probe the properties of Population III stars by accessing Population III galaxies in blind surveys (Vikaeus et al 2022). More information will be yielded by instruments such as SPHEREx, by precisely measuring the near-infrared background (Sun et al 2021), and mission concepts like THESEUS, by detecting the most distant long gamma-ray burst (Tanvir et al 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

On the Single-event-based Identification of Primordial Black Hole Mergers at Cosmological Distances

Ng¹,

Chen²,

Goncharov³

et al. 2022

ApJL

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The existence of primordial black holes (PBHs), which may form from the collapse of matter overdensities shortly after the Big Bang, is still under debate. Among the potential signatures of PBHs are gravitational waves (GWs) emitted from binary black hole (BBH) mergers at redshifts z ≳ 30, where the formation of astrophysical black holes is unlikely. Future ground-based GW detectors, the Cosmic Explorer and Einstein Telescope, will be able to observe equal-mass BBH mergers with total mass of  ( 10 – 100 ) M ⊙ at such distances. In this work, we investigate whether the redshift measurement of a single BBH source can be precise enough to establish its primordial origin. We simulate BBHs of different masses, mass ratios and orbital orientations. We show that for BBHs with total masses between 20 M ⊙ and 40 M ⊙ merging at z ≥ 40, one can infer z > 30 at up to 97% credibility, with a network of one Einstein Telescope, one 40 km Cosmic Explorer in the US, and one 20 km Cosmic Explorer in Australia. This number reduces to 94% with a smaller network made of one Einstein Telescope and one 40 km Cosmic Explorer in the US. We also analyze how the measurement depends on the Bayesian priors used in the analysis and verify that priors that strongly favor the wrong model yield smaller Bayesian evidences.

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“…However, recent analyses in Wu et al (2021) argue that the prospects for constraining Population III star formation via the CMB are pretty bleak. Alternatively, if the Population III SFRD is high, 10 −3 M e yr −1 cMpc −3 , it is in principle detectable with SPHEREx (Sun et al 2021). Moreover, effects on 21 cm power-spectra for similar SFRDs are nontrivial (Muñoz et al 2022), so the global signal still seems ideal.…”

Section: Independent Probesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Constraining Warm Dark Matter and Population III Stars with the Global 21 cm Signal

Hibbard

Mirocha

Rapetti

et al. 2022

ApJ

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Upcoming ground- and space-based experiments may have sufficient accuracy to place significant constraints upon high-redshift star formation, Reionization, and dark matter (DM) using the global 21 cm signal of the intergalactic medium. In the early universe, when the relative abundance of low-mass DM halos was important, measuring the global signal would place constraints on the damping of structure formation caused by DM having a higher relic velocity (warm dark matter, or WDM) than in cold dark matter. Such damping, however, can be mimicked by altering the star formation efficiency (SFE) and can be difficult to detect because of the presence of Population III stars with unknown properties. We study these various cases and their degeneracies with the WDM mass parameter m X using a Fisher matrix analysis. We study the m X = 7 keV case and a star formation model that parameterizes the SFE as a strong function of halo mass and include several variations of this model along with three different input noise levels for the likelihood; we also use a minimum halo virial temperature for collapse near the molecular cooling threshold. We find that when the likelihood includes only Population II stars, m X is constrained to an uncertainty of ∼0.4 keV for all models and noise levels at the 68% confidence level. When the likelihood includes weak Population III stars, m X ∼ 0.3 keV, and if Population III star formation is relatively efficient, m X ∼ 0.1 keV uncertainty, with tight Population III star formation parameter constraints. Our results show that the global 21 cm signal is a promising test-bed for WDM models, even in the presence of strong degeneracies with astrophysical parameters.

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Revealing the formation histories of the first stars with the cosmic near-infrared background

Cited by 26 publications

References 153 publications

Probing Population III IMFs with He II/H$α$ Intensity Mapping

Probing Population III IMFs with He II/H$α$ Intensity Mapping

On the Single-event-based Identification of Primordial Black Hole Mergers at Cosmological Distances

Constraining Warm Dark Matter and Population III Stars with the Global 21 cm Signal

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