Tomography of the Reionization Epoch with Multifrequency CMB Observations

Abstract

We study the constraints that future multifrequency Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) experiments will be able to set on the metal enrichment history of the Inter Galactic Medium at the epoch of reionisation. We forecast the signal to noise ratio for the detection of the signal introduced in the CMB by resonant scattering off metals at the end of the Dark Ages. We take into account systematics associated to inter-channel calibration, PSF reconstruction errors and innacurate foreground removal. We develop an algorithm to optimally extract the signal generated by metals during reionisation and to remove accurately the contamination due to the thermal Sunyaev-Zel'dovich effect. Although demanding levels of foreground characterisation and control of systematics are required, they are very distinct from those encountered in HI-21cm studies and CMB polarization, and this fact encourages the study of resonant scattering off metals as an alternative way of conducting tomography of the reionisation epoch. An ACT-like experiment with optimistic assumtions on systematic effects, and looking at clean regions of the sky, can detect changes of 3%-12% (95% c.l.) of the OIII abundance (with respect its solar value) in the redshift range $z\in$ [12,22], for reionization redshift $z_{\rm re}>10$. However, for $z_{\rm re} <10$, it can only set upper limits on NII abundance increments of $\sim$ 60% its solar value in the redshift range $z\in$ [5.5,9], (95% c.l.). These constraints assume that inter-channel calibration is accurate down to one part in $10^{4}$, which constitutes the most critical technical requirement of this method, but still achievable with current technology.