Fast radio burst dispersion measure distribution as a probe of helium reionization

Bhattacharya M. Kumar P. Linder E.V.
19 May 2021 American Physical Society

Physical Review D
2021 #103 Issue 10

Fast radio burst (FRB) discoveries are occurring rapidly, with thousands expected from upcoming surveys. The dispersion measures (DM) observed for FRB include important information on cosmological distances and the ionization state of the universe from the redshift of emission until today. Rather than considering the DM-redshift relation, we investigate the statistical ensemble of the distribution of dispersion measures. We explore the use of this abundance information, with and without redshift information, to probe helium reionization through simulated data to redshift z=6. Carrying out Monte Carlo simulations of FRB survey samples, we examine the effect of different source redshift distributions, host galaxy models, sudden vs gradual reionization, and covariance with cosmological parameters on determination of helium reionization properties. We find that a fluence limited survey with 104 FRBs can discriminate different helium reionization histories at ∼6σ using the DM-distribution of bursts, without redshift information (and ∼10σ with redshifts).

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Center for Neutrino Physics, Department of Physics, Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, 24061, VA, United States
Department of Physics, Center for Multimessenger Astrophysics, Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, 16802, PA, United States
Department of Astronomy, University of Texas, Austin, 78712, TX, United States
Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics and Berkeley Lab, University of California, Berkeley, 94720, CA, United States
Energetic Cosmos Laboratory, Nazarbayev University, Nur-Sultan, 010000, Kazakhstan

Center for Neutrino Physics
Department of Physics
Department of Astronomy
Berkeley Center for Cosmological Physics and Berkeley Lab
Energetic Cosmos Laboratory

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