Finding the Missing Baryons in the Intergalactic Medium with Localized Fast Radio Bursts

Yang, Kui; Wu, Q.; Wang, F. Y.

doi:10.3847/2041-8213/aca145

“…They found that these uncertainties have almost no effect on the final Ω b constraint. Given the fact that our f IGM constraint is almost the same as that of Yang et al (2022), we can come to the same conclusion. Note that since the DM IGM distributions are given in discrete redshifts (Zhang et al 2021), we extrapolate them to the redshifts of the localized FRBs through cubic spline interpolation.…”

Section: Frb Dmssupporting

confidence: 55%

“…The uncertainties of these best-fit parameters may impact our final f IGM constraint. To investigate whether the uncertainties of these parameters affect the Ω b constraint (similar to our f IGM constraint), Yang et al (2022) derived Ω b using the best-fit values of these parameters plus or minus the uncertainties. They found that these uncertainties have almost no effect on the final Ω b constraint.…”

Section: Frb Dmsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…These observations suggest that FRBs are promising tools for studying cosmology. Some proposals include using localized FRBs to measure the baryon number density of the universe (Deng & Zhang 2014;McQuinn 2014;Macquart et al 2020;Yang et al 2022), constrain the dark energy equation of state (Gao et al 2014;Zhou et al 2014;Wei et al 2018;Walters et al 2018;Zhao et al 2020;Qiu et al 2022), constrain the cosmic reionization history (Deng & Zhang 2014;Zheng et al 2014;Hashimoto et al 2021), measure cosmological distances (Yu & Wang 2017;Kumar & Linder 2019), measure the Hubble constant (Hagstotz et al 2022;Wu et al 2022), using strongly lensed FRBs to probe the nature of compact dark matter (Muñoz et al 2016;, or measure the Hubble constant and cosmic curvature (Li et al 2018).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

An 8.0% Determination of the Baryon Fraction in the Intergalactic Medium from Localized Fast Radio Bursts

Bao

¹

,

Wei

²

2023

ApJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

The dispersion measure (DM)–redshift relation of fast radio bursts (FRBs) has been proposed as a potential new tool for probing the intergalactic medium (IGM) and for studying cosmology. However, poor knowledge of the baryon fraction in the IGM (f IGM) and its degeneracy with cosmological parameters impose restrictions on the cosmological applications of FRBs. Furthermore, DMs contributed by the IGM (DMIGM) and host galaxy (DMhost), important cosmological quantities, cannot be exactly extracted from observations, which would bring uncontrolled systematic uncertainties in FRB cosmology. In this work, we use 17 localized FRBs to constrain f IGM and its possible redshift evolution. Other cosmological probes such as type Ia supernovae, baryon acoustic oscillations, and cosmic microwave background radiation are combined to break parameter degeneracy. Taking into account the probability distributions of DMIGM and DMhost derived from the IllustrisTNG simulation, we obtain a robust measurement of f IGM = 0.927 ± 0.075, representing a precision of 8.0%. We find that there is no strong evidence for the redshift dependence of f IGM at the current observational data level. The rapid progress in localizing FRBs will significantly improve the constraints on f IGM.

show abstract

“…The DM is the integral over the number density of free electrons along the propagation path between the source and observer, which contains important information on the cosmological distance. Therefore, the combined DM and redshift information of FRBs can be used to study cosmology, such as constraining the baryon number density of the Universe (Deng & Zhang 2014;McQuinn 2014;Macquart et al 2020;Yang et al 2022), the dark energy equation of state (Gao et al 2014;Zhou et al 2014;Walters et al 2018;Wei et al 2018;Zhang & Li 2020;Zhao et al 2020;Qiu et al 2022), cosmic reionization history (Deng & Zhang 2014;Zheng et al 2014;Hashimoto et al 2021), cosmic proper distance (Yu & Wang 2017), the baryon mass fraction in the intergalactic medium (IGM; Li et al 2019Li et al , 2020Walters et al 2019;Wei et al 2019;Wang & Wei 2023), the Hubble constant (Hagstotz et al 2022;James et al 2022b;Wu et al 2022), and so on. Additionally, strongly lensed FRBs have also been proposed for probing the nature of compact dark matter (Muñoz et al 2016;, for measuring the Hubble constant and cosmic curvature (Li et al 2018), and for determining the post-Newtonian parameter (Abadi & Kovetz 2021;Gao et al 2022).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating Cosmological Models and the Hubble Tension Using Localized Fast Radio Bursts

Wei,

Melia

2023

ApJ

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

We use the dispersion measure (DM) and redshift measurements of 24 localized fast radio bursts (FRBs) to compare cosmological models and investigate the Hubble tension. Setting a flat prior on the DM contribution from the Milky Way’s halo, DM halo MW ∈ [ 5 , 80 ] pc cm − 3 , the best fit for flat ΛCDM is obtained with a Hubble constant H 0 = 95.8 − 9.2 + 7.8 km s − 1 Mpc − 1 and a median matter density Ωm ≈ 0.66. The best fit for the R h = ct universe is realized with H 0 = 94.2 − 6.2 + 5.6 km s − 1 Mpc − 1 . We emphasize that the H 0 measurement depends sensitively on the DM halo MW prior. Since flat ΛCDM has one more free parameter, R h = ct is favored by the Bayesian Information Criterion (BIC) with a likelihood of ∼73% versus ∼27%. Through simulations, we find that if the real cosmology is ΛCDM, a sample of ∼1150 FRBs in the redshift range 0 < z < 3 would be sufficient to rule out R h = ct at a 3σ confidence level, while ∼550 FRBs would be necessary to rule out ΛCDM if the real cosmology is instead R h = ct. The required sample sizes are different, reflecting the fact that the BIC imposes a severe penalty on the model with more free parameters. We further adopt a straightforward method of deriving an upper limit to H 0, without needing to consider the poorly known probability distribution of the DM contributed by the host galaxy. The theoretical DM contribution from the intergalactic medium (DMIGM) at any z is proportional to H 0. Thus, requiring the extragalactic DMext to be larger than DMIGM delimits H 0 to the upside. Assuming flat ΛCDM, we have H 0 < 89.0 km s−1 Mpc−1 at a 95% confidence level.

show abstract

“…Recently, it has been found in both simulations (Xia et al 2021) and observations (Wang et al 2021, SDSS) that net rotations of cosmic filaments themselves are non-zero, making them the largest known structures in the Universe to rotate. Cosmic filaments also host the majority of the baryons at low redshifts in the form of the warm-hot intergalactic medium, thereby potentially solving the socalled "missing baryon problem" (Klar & Mücket 2012;Yang et al 2022;Chaves-Montero & Hearin 2021).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cosmic Web Dissection in Fuzzy Dark Matter Cosmologies

Dome¹,

Fialkov²,

Sartorio³

et al. 2023

Preprint

0

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

On large cosmological scales, anisotropic gravitational collapse is manifest in the dark cosmic web. Its statistical properties are well known for the standard ΛCDM cosmology, yet become modified for alternative dark matter models such as fuzzy dark matter (FDM). In this work, we assess for the first time the relative importance of cosmic nodes, filaments, walls and voids in a cosmology with small-scale suppression of power such as FDM. By applying the NEXUS+ Multiscale Morphology Filter technique to cosmological N-body simulations of FDM-like cosmologies, we quantify the mass and volume filling fractions of cosmic environments at redshifts z ∼ 3.4 − 5.6 and find that 2D cosmic sheets host a larger share of the matter content of the Universe (∼ 5% increase for the m = 7 × 10 −22 eV model compared to CDM) as the particle mass m is reduced. We find that the suppression of node-, filament-, wall-and void-conditioned halo mass functions at the low-mass end can occur well above the half-mode mass M 1/2 . We show that log overdensity PDFs are more peaked in FDM-like cosmologies with medians shifted to higher values, a result of the suppression of the low overdensity tail as m is reduced. Skewness estimates S 3 of the unconditioned overdensity PDF P(δ) in FDM-like cosmologies are systematically higher than in CDM, more so at high redshift z ∼ 5.5 where the m = 10 −22 eV model differs from CDM by ∼ 2σ. Accordingly, we advocate for the usage of P(δ) as a testbed for constraining FDM and other alternative dark matter models.

show abstract

Finding the Missing Baryons in the Intergalactic Medium with Localized Fast Radio Bursts

Cited by 18 publications

References 69 publications

An 8.0% Determination of the Baryon Fraction in the Intergalactic Medium from Localized Fast Radio Bursts

An 8.0% Determination of the Baryon Fraction in the Intergalactic Medium from Localized Fast Radio Bursts

Investigating Cosmological Models and the Hubble Tension Using Localized Fast Radio Bursts

Cosmic Web Dissection in Fuzzy Dark Matter Cosmologies

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About