Constraining the state of the intergalactic medium during the Epoch of Reionization using MWA 21-cm signal observations

TL;DR

This study uses MWA 21-cm observations and Bayesian analysis to constrain the ionization and thermal history of the intergalactic medium during the Epoch of Reionization, considering the impact of potential radio backgrounds.

Contribution

It introduces a Bayesian framework to interpret 21-cm power spectrum limits, constraining IGM properties and radio backgrounds during reionization.

Findings

No constraints on IGM state for z > 7.8 without additional radio background.

Disfavored models suggest low ionization fraction (<0.6) and gas temperature ≤ 10^3 K at z ≈ 6.5.

Excludes radio background of at least 0.008% of CMB at 1.42 GHz.

Abstract

The Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) team has derived new upper limits on the spherically averaged power spectrum of the 21-cm signal at six redshifts in the range $z \approx 6.5-8.7$. We use these upper limits and a Bayesian inference framework to derive constraints on the ionization and thermal state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) as well as on the strength of a possible additional radio background. We do not find any constraints on the state of the IGM for $z\gtrsim 7.8$ if no additional radio background is present. In the presence of such a radio background, the 95 per cent credible intervals of the disfavoured models at redshift $\gtrsim 6.5 $ correspond to an IGM with a volume averaged fraction of ionized regions below 0.6 and an average gas temperature $\lesssim 10^3$ K. In these models, the heated regions are characterised by a temperature larger than that of the radio background, and by a distribution with characteristic size $\lesssim 10$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc and a full width at half maximum (FWHM) of $\lesssim 30$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc. Within the same credible interval limits, we exclude an additional radio background of at least $0.008\%$ of the CMB at 1.42 GHz.