Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Mutual Constraints Between Reionization Models And Parameter Extraction From Cosmic Microwave Background Data, Aparna Venkatesan

Physics and Astronomy

Spectroscopic studies of high-redshift objects and increasingly precise data on the cosmic microwave background (CMB) are beginning to independently place strong complementary bounds on the epoch of hydrogen reionization. Parameter estimation from current CMB data continues, however, to be subject to several degeneracies. Here, we focus on those degeneracies in CMB parameter forecasts related to the optical depth to reionization. We extend earlier work on the mutual constraints that such analyses of CMB data and a reionization model may place on each other to a more general parameter set and to the case of data anticipated from the MAP satellite. …