While we can't travel back to witness this process, researchers are collecting vast amounts of data and running simulations to better understand this critical phase of cosmic evolution. "These first stars have a lot of energy and when their ultraviolet protons interact with neutral hydrogen atoms, they eject an electron from the atom, and that's basically how the universe became reionized," said Srinivasan Raghunathan, Ph.D., a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for AstroPhysical Surveys (CAPS) at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA), University of Illinois.

Raghunathan's research focuses on the interaction of free electrons with the cosmic microwave background (CMB), the radiation left over from the Big Bang. This interaction results in the kinetic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich (kSZ) effect, which provides cosmologists with insights into the EoR and its timeline. The team's research, using data from the South Pole Telescope and the SPIRE instrument aboard the Herschel Space Observatory, was recently published in 'Physical Review Letters'.

"Looking for this signal is crucial because it's a way that we can understand how this whole process happened," explained Raghunathan. However, detecting the kSZ effect is challenging due to its faint nature and the interference from other cosmic phenomena, including the CMB itself.

The research team applied advanced techniques to identify the kSZ effect, using trispectrum analysis to search for correlations that would indicate the patchy reionization process. They also developed high-resolution computer simulations to filter out extraneous signals, including the effects of gravitational lensing.

"We know there are many galaxies in patches or bubbles and that there should be some kind of correlation between these patches," Raghunathan added. By using simulations and analyzing correlations, the researchers aim to develop a statistical model of the EoR.

While the team has not yet detected the kSZ signal, their work sets critical constraints on the amplitude of the signal, allowing them to rule out certain models of reionization. "The fact that we didn't detect the signal tells us that the signal can't be above a certain amplitude," said Raghunathan.

Looking ahead, ongoing research with the South Pole Telescope and future experiments like the CMB-S4 promise to provide even more data, offering new opportunities to explore the early universe and the mysteries of the Epoch of Reionization.

Research Report:First Constraints on the Epoch of Reionization Using the Non-Gaussianity of the Kinematic Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect from the South Pole Telescope and Herschel-SPIRE Observations

Related Links
National Center for Supercomputing Applications
Center for AstroPhysical Surveys
Understanding Time and Space