Carbon monoxide line emission as a CMB foreground: tomography of the star-forming universe with different spectral resolutions

Understand

The rotational lines of carbon monoxide and the fine structure lines of CII and of the most abundant metals, emitted during the epoch of enhanced star formation in the universe, are redshifted in the frequency channels where the present-day and future CMB experiments are sensitive.

• We estimate the contribution to the CMB angular power spectrum by the emission in such lines in merging star-forming galaxies.
• We used the Lacey-Cole approach to characterize the distribution of the merging halos, together with a parametrization for the star formation rate in each of them.
• Using observational data from a sample of local, low-redshift, and high-redshift objects, we calibrated the luminosity in each line as a function of the star formation rate.