The Kramers-Heisenberg Formula and the Gunn-Peterson Trough from the First Objects in the Universe

Abstract

Recent cosmological observations indicate that the reionized universe may have started at around z=6, where a significant suppression around Ly alpha has been observed from the neutral intergalactic medium. The associated neutral hydrogen column density is expected to exceed 10^{21}cm^{-2}},where it is very important to use the accurate scattering cross section known as the Kramers-Heisenberg formula that is obtained from the fully quantum mechanical time-dependent second order perturbation theory. We present the Kramers-Heisenberg formula and compare it with the formula introduced in a heuristic way by Peebles (1993) treating the hydrogen atom as a two-level atom, from which we find a devitaion by a factor of two in the red wing region far from the line center. Adopting simple cosmological models, we compute the Gunn-Peterson optical depths and the trough profiles. Our results are compared with the works performed by Madau & Rees (2000), who adopted the cross section introduced by Peebles. We find deviations up to 5 per cent in the Gunn-Peterson transmission coefficient for an accelerated expanding universe in the red off-resonance wing part with the rest wavelength Delta_lambda~10{AA}.