Characterizing the Epoch of Reionization with the small-scale CMB: constraints on the optical depth and physical parameters

TL;DR

This paper develops a method to better constrain the epoch of reionization using small-scale CMB data, improving measurements of optical depth and reionization duration, which impacts understanding of early universe physics.

Contribution

It extends existing formalism to utilize the full shape of the small-scale CMB power spectrum, enabling more precise constraints on reionization parameters and breaking previous degeneracies.

Findings

Next-generation CMB experiments could triple the precision of optical depth measurements.

The method constrains reionization duration to approximately 25%.

Improved constraints aid in understanding neutrino masses and reionization physics.

Abstract

Patchy reionization leaves a number of imprints on the small-scale cosmic microwave background (CMB) temperature fluctuations, the largest of which is the kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ), the Doppler shift of CMB photons scattering off moving electrons in ionized bubbles. It has long been known that in the CMB power spectrum, this imprint of reionization is largely degenerate with the kSZ signal produced by late-time galaxies and clusters, thus limiting our ability to constrain reionization. Following Smith & Ferraro (2017), it is possible to isolate the reionization contribution in a model independent way, by looking at the large scale modulation of the small scale CMB power spectrum. In this paper we extend the formalism to use the full shape information of the small scale power spectrum (rather than just its broadband average), and argue that this is necessary to break the degeneracy between the optical depth $\tau$ and parameters setting the duration of reionization. In particular, we show that the next generation of CMB experiments could achieve up to a factor of 3 improvement on the optical depth $\tau$ and at the same time, constrain the duration of reionization to $\sim$ 25 %. This can help tighten the constrains on neutrino masses, which will be limited by our knowledge of $\tau$, and shed light on the physical processes responsible for reionization.