Needling the early universe

Citations Over TimeTop 15% of 1988 papers

Abstract

We explore the possibility that the entire cosmic microwave background (CMB) can be produced by a bright population of pregalactic stars at a redshift z of a few hundred. The thermalizing source of the background is a combination of silicate, amorphous carbon, and graphite spherical grains, together with graphite needle-shaped conducting grains which give rise to the long wavelength opacity. We have improved on previous studies by allowing each dust type to reach independently its own equilibrium temperature in the Population III star photon field. We find that the interaction of starlight with a small amount of these grains gives rise to a spectrum consistent with the available measurements of the CMB throughout the observable frequency range. The presence of needles inhibits distortions at low frequencies because these elongated grains never attain temperatures appreciably hotter than the CMB, but the other dust types are able to produce significant distortions near the peak of the CMB. In addition, we investigate the occurrence of deviations away from a perfect thermal spectrum in a primordial 2.7 K blackbody caused by an early stellar population and dust. A small quantity of spherical silicate and graphite grains produces potentially observable intensity deviations near the peak of the spectrum of a primordial CMB. We find that in our cold models the presence of dust causes intensity deviations at the 7% level. Distortions of this magnitude are consistent with the observational data, but large enough to be readily detectable by the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite.

Related Papers

• → Low‐Temperature Opacities(2005)1,264 cited
• → Replicating the Z iron opacity experiments on the NIF(2017)32 cited
• → The Quantitative Measurement of the Opacity of Aesthetic Dental Filling Materials(1979)34 cited
• → Opacity calculations for aluminum, hydrogen, and gold using FLYCHK with improved free-free opacity formalism(2023)2 cited
• → Cosmic Microwave Background Radiation(1999)2 cited