Astronomy and Astrophysics – Astronomy
Scientific paper
Jan 2009
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2009aas...21310201s&link_type=abstract
American Astronomical Society, AAS Meeting #213, #102.01; Bulletin of the American Astronomical Society, Vol. 41, p.280
Astronomy and Astrophysics
Astronomy
Scientific paper
In our Universe the initial temperature of radiation was very high and hydrogen and helium were completely ionized. At redshifts z 1400 the temperature dropped to 3800 K and, according to the Saha equation, the recombination of hydrogen should occur. In reality this process is strongly delayed and some frozen amount of electrons should be present till the reionization of the Universe at z 10. Process of recombination defines the position and the width of the last scattering surface which is crucial for the formation of the observed angular fluctuations of cosmic microwave background radiation (CMB), acoustic peaks and barionic oscillations in the distribution of galaxies and clusters of galaxies in space.
The recombination of hydrogen occurs under conditions of very low density and in the presence of black body radiation. As a result, usually insignificant atomic processes begin to play a role. They influence the shape of acoustic peaks at a level which will be detectable by the Planck Surveyor spacecraft and we should take them into account when estimating the key parameters of the Universe from CMB data. The recombination of hydrogen and helium leads to the appearance of recombinational lines in centimeter and decimeter spectral bands. Observations of these lines will make it possible to check the predictions of the big bang recombination theory and will open a possibility to measure directly the density of barions, the CMB monopole temperature and specific entropy of the Universe. Observations of helium recombination lines originated at redshifts 6000 and 2500 will open a way to measure the prestellar abundance of helium in the Universe.
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