Speaker
Description
The imprint of the Epoch of Reionization is encoded in the large-scale E-mode polarization of the CMB, which provides a direct constraint on the Thomson optical depth, $\tau$. Despite the high quality of the Planck and WMAP datasets, a fully consistent framework that jointly exploits all available large-scale polarization information has so far been lacking.
To address this, we have developed ELiCA (E-mode Likelihood for Cross-Analysis), a unified and publicly available likelihood that consistently combines the Planck 100 and 143 GHz HFI channels, the 70 GHz LFI channel, and the WMAP Ka, Q, and V bands. In this poster, I will present the first application of ELiCA in combination with x_HII data derived from different observables and reconstruction methods, all implemented within the public Python package CoReCon. By jointly analyzing large-scale CMB polarization and astrophysical probes while exploring both parametric and non-parametric reionization histories, this ongoing work aims to improve our understanding of the timing and evolution of cosmic reionization.
The core of this project is the development of a new public Python package, CoCoRI$\tau$A (CoReCon for Cobaya Reionization Inference on $\tau$ Analysis), which provides a unified framework for joint CMB + x_HII analyses under a wide range of reionization models. More generally, this work highlights the power of combining all available large-scale CMB E-mode polarization information with complementary astrophysical datasets to build a more complete and robust picture of the Epoch of Reionization.