Fast Radio Bursts as a Probe for the Epoch of Reionisation

Peters, Dewy (2022) Fast Radio Bursts as a Probe for the Epoch of Reionisation. Bachelor's Thesis, Physics.

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Abstract

Despite their origin still being shrouded in mystery, Fast Radio Bursts (FRBs) allegedly have significant potential as cosmological probes. Detecting these signals at high redshifts may allow us to learn about the Intergalactic Medium (IGM) they have to traverse, and in particular the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR). This is due to the signals being dispersed along the line of sight. Another phenomenon that has quite famously been employed to study the aforementioned period of cosmic history is a map of the anisotropies in the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB), some of which are induced by Thomson scattering during reionisation and many of which are primordial fluctuations. Therefore, a cross-correlation between the Dispersion Measure (DM) of FRBs and anisotropies in the optical depth to Thomson scattering of the CMB is expected to be very high and therefore may be an invaluable tool in probing the EoR. In this thesis, we indeed find that this is the case, with the correlation being consistently above 98% for multipoles between 500 and 4000. We also find the signal to be significantly in excess of the noise in all the cases we simulate. Using a population synthesis program we simulate the total SNR as a function of the maximum angular wavenumber for a series of surveys and find all to have SNRs in excess of unity, with a “perfect” survey returning values on the order of 100. We therefore find that this cross-correlation indeed has potential to be used as a cosmological probe.

Item Type:	Thesis (Bachelor's Thesis)
Supervisor name:	Meerburg, P.D.
Degree programme:	Physics
Thesis type:	Bachelor's Thesis
Language:	English
Date Deposited:	24 May 2022 10:22
Last Modified:	24 May 2022 10:22
URI:	https://fse.studenttheses.ub.rug.nl/id/eprint/27077

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