From dark to dark: Anthropic selection of cosmological parameters and an analysis method for signals from cosmic reionization

Abstract

This thesis includes two independent works on dark energy and the cosmic dark ages.

(1) Weinberg {\it et al.} calculated the anthropic likelihood of the cosmological constant $\Lambda$ using a model assuming that the number of observers is proportional to the total mass of gravitationally collapsed objects, with mass greater than a certain threshold at $t \to \infty$. We modify Weinberg`s model in a way that the number of observers is proportional to the number of collapsed objects, with mass and time equal to certain preferred mass and time scales. Unlike Weinberg`s model, the anthropic likelihood of the primordial density perturbation amplitude $Q$ from our model explains $Q_0$ well without any additional constraint. Furthermore, observers will be affected by the history of the collapsed object, and we introduce a method to calculate the anthropic likelihoods of $\Lambda$ and $Q$ from the mass history using the extended Press-Schechter formalism. In contrast to models using only a single mass constraint, the results from the models using the mass history are robust even if we allow both $\Lambda$ and $Q$ to vary.

(2) We propose a topological analysis method of 21-cm signal using the 2D genus curve, a function defined as the difference of the number of hot regions and the number of cold regions, compared to a given temperature. We show that the 2D genus curve of the differential brightness temperature, $g_\mathrm{2D} (\delta T_\mathrm{b})$, by comparing to $g_\mathrm{2D}$ of the density fluctuation, $g_\mathrm{2D} (\delta T_\mathrm{b,n})$, clearly shows the evolution of the reionization process. We also show that the 2D genus topology method can effectively distinguish different reionization scenarios, especially with different source photon efficiency for a low-mass source $10^8 \lesssim M / M_\odot \lesssim 10^9$ and with different greatest ionized bubble size. In terms of the design of future detection, we show that observational beams insensitive to la...