New Constraints on IGM Thermal Evolution from the Ly{\alpha} Forest Power Spectrum

TL;DR

This study uses Lyα forest power spectrum measurements and hydrodynamical simulations to map the IGM's thermal history over 3 billion years, confirming reionization heating and subsequent cooling, and constraining dark matter properties.

Contribution

It introduces a Bayesian inference framework with an emulator to precisely determine IGM temperature evolution, breaking previous degeneracies in thermal parameter estimates.

Findings

IGM temperature peaks at ~14000 K around z~3.4

Lower temperatures at z≥5 suggest limited warm dark matter smoothing

Results align with previous studies but improve parameter constraints

Abstract

We determine the thermal evolution of the intergalactic medium (IGM) over $3\, \mathrm{Gyr}$ of cosmic time $1.8<z<5.4$ by comparing measurements of the Ly{\alpha} forest power spectrum to a suite of $\sim70$ hydrodynamical simulations. We conduct Bayesian inference of IGM thermal parameters using an end-to-end forward modeling framework whereby mock spectra generated from our simulation grid are used to build a custom emulator which interpolates the power spectrum between thermal grid points. The temperature at mean density $T_0$ rises steadily from $T_0\sim 6000\, \mathrm{K}$ at $z=5.4$, peaks at $14000\, \mathrm{K}$ for $z\sim 3.4$, and decreases at lower redshift reaching $T_0\sim 7000\, \mathrm{K}$ by $z\sim1.8$. This evolution provides conclusive evidence for photoionization heating resulting from the reionization of He II, as well as the subsequent cooling of the IGM due to the expansion of the Universe after all reionization events are complete. Our results are broadly consistent with previous measurements of thermal evolution based on a variety of approaches, but the sensitivity of the power spectrum, the combination of high precision BOSS measurements of large-scale modes ($k\lesssim 0.02\, \mathrm{s/km}$) with our recent determination of the small-scale power, our large grid of models, and our careful statistical analysis allow us to break the well known degeneracy between the temperature at mean density $T_0$ and the slope of the temperature density relation $\gamma$ that has plagued previous analyses. At the highest redshifts $z\geq5$ we infer lower temperatures than expected from the standard picture of IGM thermal evolution leaving little room for additional smoothing of the Ly{\alpha} forest by free streaming of warm dark matter.