The THESAN project: predictions for multitracer line intensity mapping in the epoch of reionization

Abstract

Line intensity mapping (LIM) is rapidly emerging as a powerful technique to study galaxy formation and cosmology in the high-redshift Universe. We present LIM estimates of select spectral lines originating from the interstellar medium (ISM) of galaxies and 21 cm emission from neutral hydrogen gas in the Universe using the large volume, high resolution thesan reionization simulations. A combination of subresolution photoionization modelling for H ii regions and Monte Carlo radiative transfer calculations is employed to estimate the dust-attenuated spectral energy distributions (SEDs) of high-redshift galaxies (z ≳ 5.5). We show that the derived photometric properties such as the ultraviolet (UV) luminosity function and the UV continuum slopes match observationally inferred values, demonstrating the accuracy of the SED modelling. We provide fits to the luminosity–star formation rate relation (L–SFR) for the brightest emission lines and find that important differences exist between the derived scaling relations and the widely used low-z ones because the ISM of reionization era galaxies is generally less metal enriched than in their low-redshift counterparts. We use these relations to construct line intensity maps of nebular emission lines and cross-correlate with the 21 cm emission. Interestingly, the wavenumber at which the correlation switches sign (k_(transition)) depends heavily on the reionization model and to a lesser extent on the targeted emission line, which is consistent with the picture that k_(transition) probes the typical sizes of ionized regions. The derived scaling relations and intensity maps represent a timely state-of-the-art framework for forecasting and interpreting results from current and upcoming LIM experiments.