{"paper":{"title":"A hidden reionization prior biases cosmological inference","license":"http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/","headline":"","cross_cats":["astro-ph.GA"],"primary_cat":"astro-ph.CO","authors_text":"Huanyuan Shan, Zihan Wang","submitted_at":"2026-06-26T09:53:37Z","abstract_excerpt":"Precision cosmology assumes that cosmic reionization was a single smooth transition. We show that this assumption is in tension with current observations: the Planck optical depth, patchy kinetic Sunyaev--Zel'dovich (PkSZ)limits from SPT and ACT, and the Ly$\\alpha$ forest endpoint cannot be simultaneously reproduced by any viable monotonic ionization history. Non-parametric reconstructions and Planck EE polarization provide independent support for an additional ionization component at $z \\gtrsim 12$. Incorporating this early phase relaxes the upper bound on the summed neutrino mass to $\\sum m_"},"claims":{"count":0,"items":[],"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"source":{"id":"2606.27903","kind":"arxiv","version":1},"verdict":{"id":null,"model_set":{},"created_at":null,"strongest_claim":"","one_line_summary":"","pipeline_version":null,"weakest_assumption":"","pith_extraction_headline":""},"integrity":{"clean":true,"summary":{"advisory":0,"critical":0,"by_detector":{},"informational":0},"endpoint":"/pith/2606.27903/integrity.json","findings":[],"available":true,"detectors_run":[],"snapshot_sha256":"c28c3603d3b5d939e8dc4c7e95fa8dfce3d595e45f758748cecf8e644a296938"},"references":{"count":0,"sample":[],"resolved_work":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57","internal_anchors":0},"formal_canon":{"evidence_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"author_claims":{"count":0,"strong_count":0,"snapshot_sha256":"258153158e38e3291e3d48162225fcdb2d5a3ed65a07baac614ab91432fd4f57"},"builder_version":"pith-number-builder-2026-05-17-v1"}