Impact of cosmic rays on the global 21-cm signal during cosmic dawn

Abstract

ABSTRACT It is extremely important to understand the processes through which the thermal state of the inter-galactic medium (IGM) evolved in the early universe in order to study the evolution of HI 21-cm signal during cosmic dawn. Here, we consider the heating of the IGM due to cosmic ray (CR) protons generated by the supernovae from both early Pop III and Pop II stars. The low energy CR (cr protons from Pop III supernovae can escape from minihalos and heat the IGM via collision and ionization of hydrogen. Furthermore, high-energy protons generated in Pop II supernovae can escape the hosting halos and heat the IGM via magnetosonic Alfvén waves. We show that the heating due to these CR particles can significantly impact the IGM temperature and hence the global 21-cm signal at z ∼ 14−18. The depth, location, and duration of the 21-cm absorption profile are highly dependent on the efficiencies of CR heating. In particular, the Experiment to Detect the Epoch of Reionization Signature signal can be well fitted by the CR heating along with the Lyman-α coupling and the dark matter--baryon interaction that we consider to achieve a ‘colder IGM background’. Further, we argue that the properties of CRs and the nature of first generation of stars could be constrained by accurately measuring the global 21-cm absorption signal during the cosmic dawn.