Baryons in the Darkest Sites of the Universe

TL;DR

This study uses Fast Radio Burst dispersion measures to observationally quantify the baryon underdensity in cosmic voids, revealing a significant baryon deficit and providing insights into the warm-hot phase of diffuse gas.

Contribution

First observational constraint on baryon underdensity in void interiors using FRB dispersion measures, linking baryonic content to galaxy underdensity and thermal state.

Findings

Detected a 3.2σ DM deficit toward void centers.

Baryons are underdense by approximately 60% in void interiors.

Void gas temperature constrained to less than about 1.1 million Kelvin.

Abstract

The pristine underdense patches of the Universe, cosmic voids, are powerful cosmological laboratories, uniquely sensitive to dark energy, modified gravity, and neutrino masses, yet their baryonic content remains uncharacterized. We present the first observational constraint on baryon underdensity in void interiors, exploiting the dispersion measures (DMs) of Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) as tracers of the free electron column, independent of gas phase, temperature, and metallicity. By stacking 3,455 sightlines from CHIME/FRB on 1,288 SDSS BOSS voids over redshifts $0.2 < z < 0.7$, we measure a DM deficit toward void centers at $3.2\sigma$ significance, establishing that diffuse baryons inhabit the emptiest corners of the cosmic web at a suppressed level. The measured signal amplitude is consistent with an effective Universe model built directly from the observed galaxy underdensity in these voids, and a baryonic model calibrated to the FRB DM-redshift relation ($\alpha_v = 1.80 \pm 0.87$). A uniform-density void model yields an electron density contrast of $\delta_\mathrm{e,v} = -0.58 \pm 0.30$, implying a $\sim 60$% underdensity of baryons in void interiors relative to the cosmic mean. Jointly interpreting our FRB measurement with existing stacks of the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect on voids further constrains the mean void gas temperature to $T_\mathrm{e} \lesssim (1.1 \pm 0.7) \times 10^6$ K, pointing to a warm-hot diffuse phase, consistent with hydrodynamical simulation predictions. With forthcoming FRB (CHORD, DSA, SKA) and galaxy (DESI, LSST, Euclid, PFS-Subaru, SPHEREx, Roman) surveys, set to expand both samples by orders of magnitude, this approach opens a new window onto tomographic baryon mapping, with direct implications for feedback models governing gas expulsion into low-density environments, and for the use of cosmic voids to extract cosmological constraints.