Solving the system of atomic rate equations during recombination
Name
212376979-MIT.pdf
Description
Full printable version
Size
1.88 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
792c50ac215f6ea0ce76a6c3e54bce93
Author(s)
Scolnic, Daniel (Daniel M.)
Advisor(s)
Edmund Bertschinger.
Date Issued
2007
Publisher
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Abstract
The recombination of hydrogen at z ~ 800 - 1800 induces distortions to the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) spectrum. We present a careful calculation and analysis of all of the main transitions occurring during this period in order to find the electron density throughout recombination and its dependence on each process. Our original motivation was to analyze the effects that Thomson scattering and resonance scattering will have on recombination. However, while working on the project, we found that first we had to thoroughly account for all of the atomic transitions. We present a new method for solving the system of equations throughout the period of recombination. This method allows us to show the effect of individual processes on the total ionization fraction.
Description
Thesis (S.B.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Dept. of Physics, 2007.
Includes bibliographical references (leaves 59-60).
Subjects
Physics.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
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