Another look to distortions of the CMB spectrum

TL;DR

This paper reviews the spectral distortions of the CMB, emphasizing the effects of IGM heating, foreground challenges, and potential detection methods through anisotropy experiments and dipole spectrum analysis.

Contribution

It explores unexamined aspects of CMB spectral distortions, including IGM heating effects and innovative detection strategies beyond absolute measurements.

Findings

Expected y-parameter values below COBE/FIRAS limits due to IGM heating.

Foreground subtraction challenges for PIXIE-level sensitivity.

Potential to improve distortion constraints via CMB dipole spectrum analysis.

Abstract

We review aspects of Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) spectral distortions which do not appear to have been fully explored in the literature. In particular, implications of recent evidences of heating of the intergalactic medium (IGM) by feedback from active galactic nuclei are investigated. Taking also into account the IGM heating associated to structure formation, we argue that values of the y parameter of several*10^(-6), i.e. a factor of a few below the COBE/FIRAS upper limit, are to be expected. The Compton scattering by the re-ionized plasma also re-processes primordial distortions, adding a y-type contribution. Hence no pure Bose-Einstein-like distortions are to be expected. An assessment of Galactic and extragalactic foregrounds, taking into account the latest results from the Planck satellite as well as the contributions from the strong CII and CO lines from star-forming galaxies, demonstrates that a foreground subtraction accurate enough to fully exploit the PIXIE sensitivity will be extremely challenging. Motivated by this fact we also discuss methods to detect spectral distortions not requiring absolute measurements and show that accurate determinations of the frequency spectrum of the CMB dipole amplitude may substantially improve over COBE/FIRAS limits on distortion parameters. Such improvements may be at reach of next generation CMB anisotropy experiments. The estimated amplitude of the Cosmic Infrared Background (CIB) dipole might be detectable by careful analyses of Planck maps at the highest frequencies. Thus Planck might provide interesting constraints on the CIB intensity, currently known with a ~30% uncertainty.