The post-reionization neutral hydrogen - a cosmological probe

Abstract

In the absence of complex astrophysical processes that characterize the reionization era, bulk of the post-reionization neutral gas is believed to be housed in dense self shielded DLA clouds. The neutral hydrogen from this epoch can be seen either through the 21-cm emission or Lyman-alpha absorption. We present the cross-correlation of the redshifted 21-cm emission from neutral hydrogen (HI) in the post-reionization era with the Ly-alpha forest as a new probe of the large scale matter distribution in the redshift range z=2 to 3 with a significantly lesser problem arising from foreground contamination. Though the 21-cm and the Lyman-alpha forest signals originate from different astrophysical systems, they are both expected to trace the underlying dark matter distribution on large scales. The post-reionization 21-cm signal is studied using numerical N-body simulation to justify its use as a biased tracer. We investigate the imprint of baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) in the cross-correlation power spectrum and the feasibility of a detection of the BAO scale with future radio interferometric observations and quasar surveys. The multi-frequency angular power spectrum, shall allow the detection of the BAO feature along both radial and transverse directions, opening new avenues for precision cosmology and enhance our understanding of Dark energy.