PT Journal
AU Witte, S
   Villanueva-Domingo, P
   Gariazzo, S
   Mena, O
   Palomares-Ruiz, S
TI EDGES result versus CMB and low-redshift constraints on ionization histories
SO Physical Review D
JI Phys. Rev. D
PY 2018
BP 103533
EP 8pp
VL 97
IS 10
DI 10.1103/PhysRevD.97.103533
LA English
AB We examine the results from the Experiment to Detect the Global Epoch of Reionization Signature (EDGES), which has recently claimed the detection of a strong absorption in the 21 cm hyperfine transition line of neutral hydrogen, at redshifts demarcating the early stages of star formation. More concretely, we study the compatibility of the shape of the EDGES absorption profile, centered at a redshift of z similar to 17.2, with measurements of the reionization optical depth, the Gunn-Peterson optical depth, and Lyman-alpha emission from star-forming galaxies, for a variety of possible reionization models within the standard ACDM framework (that is, a Universe with a cosmological constant. and cold dark matter CDM). When, conservatively, we only try to accommodate the location of the absorption dip, we identify a region in the parameter space of the astrophysical parameters that successfully explains all of the aforementioned observations. However, one of the most abnormal features of the EDGES measurement is the absorption amplitude, which is roughly a factor of 2 larger than the maximum allowed value in the ACDM framework. We point out that the simple considered astrophysical models that produce the largest absorption amplitudes are unable to explain the depth of the dip and of reproducing the observed shape of the absorption profile.
ER