A new Measurement of the Intergalactic Temperature at $z\sim 2.55-2.95$

TL;DR

This paper introduces two Bayesian methods to measure the intergalactic medium's temperature-density relationship at redshifts 2.55-2.95, using quasar spectra and simulations, providing consistent results and insights into parameter correlations.

Contribution

It presents novel Bayesian approaches to accurately determine the IGM's thermal state from absorption line data, accounting for parameter correlations and utilizing the full distribution of absorption features.

Findings

Measured T0/10^3 K ≈ 15.6 ± 4.4 and γ ≈ 1.45 ± 0.17

Consistent results from different Bayesian methods

Identified strong anti-correlations between T0, γ, and pressure smoothing

Abstract

We present two measurements of the temperature-density relationship (TDR) of the intergalactic medium (IGM) in the redshift range $2.55 < z < 2.95$ using a sample of 13 high-quality quasar spectra and high resolution numerical simulations of the IGM. Our approach is based on fitting the neutral hydrogen column density $N_{HI}$ and the Doppler parameter $b$ of the absorption lines in the \mlya\ forest. The first measurement is obtained using a novel Bayesian scheme which takes into account the statistical correlations between the parameters characterising the lower cut-off of the $b-N_{HI}$ distribution and the power-law parameters $T_0$ and $\gamma$ describing the TDR. This approach yields $T_0/ 10^3\, {\rm K}=15.6 \pm 4.4 $ and $\gamma=1.45 \pm 0.17$ independent of the assumed pressure smoothing of the small scale density field. In order to explore the information contained in the overall $b-N_{HI}$ distribution rather than only the lower cut-off, we obtain a second measurement based on a similar Bayesian analysis of the median Doppler parameter for separate column-density ranges of the absorbers. In this case we obtain $T_0/ 10^3\, {\rm K}=14.6 \pm 3.7$ and $\gamma=1.37 \pm 0.17$ in good agreement with the first measurement. Our Bayesian analysis reveals strong anti-correlations between the inferred $T_0$ and $\gamma$ for both methods as well as an anti-correlation of the inferred $T_0$ and the pressure smoothing length for the second method, suggesting that the measurement accuracy can in the latter case be substantially increased if independent constraints on the smoothing are obtained. Our results are in good agreement with other recent measurements of the thermal state of the IGM probing similar (over-)density ranges.