Gauging the Contribution of X-ray Sources to Reionization Through the Kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect

TL;DR

This paper investigates how X-ray sources influence the reionization process and the resulting kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect, revealing that X-ray contributions can significantly alter CMB anisotropy signals and should be considered in future observations.

Contribution

It introduces semi-numerical simulations to assess the impact of X-ray contributions on reionization and the kSZ effect, highlighting the importance of X-ray sources in interpreting CMB data.

Findings

Models with >10% X-ray contribution lower the kSZ power spectrum.

Current instruments may not distinguish X-ray effects from UV-only models.

X-ray contributions could explain non-detections of the reionization kSZ signal.

Abstract

Measurements of the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect from instruments such as the South Pole Telescope (SPT) and the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) will soon put improved constraints on reionization. Popular models assume that UV photons alone are responsible for reionization of the intergalactic medium. We explore the effects of a significant contribution of X-rays to reionization on the kSZ signal. Because X-rays have a large mean free path through the neutral intergalactic medium, they introduce partial ionization in between the sharp-edged bubbles created by UV photons. This smooth ionization component changes the power spectrum of the cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature anisotropies. We quantify this effect by running semi-numerical simulations of reionization. We test a number of different models of reionization without X-rays that have varying physical parameters, but which are constrained to have similar total optical depths to electron scattering. These are then compared to models with varying levels of contribution to reionization from X-rays. We find that models with more than a 10% contribution from X-rays produce a significantly lower power spectrum of temperature anisotropies than all the UV-only models tested. The expected sensitivity of SPT and ACT may be insufficient to distinguish between our models, however, a non-detection of the kSZ signal from the epoch of reionization could result from the contribution of X-rays. It will be important for future missions with improved sensitivity to consider the impact of X-ray sources on reionization.