Mapmaking for precision 21 cm cosmology
Name
PhysRevD.91.023002.pdf
Size
2.65 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (MD5)
76c48fbb7c33933a4bcf9440e8a90ca6
Author(s)
Liu, Adrian Chi-Yan
Ewall-Wice, Aaron Michael
Hewitt, Jacqueline N.
Morales, Miguel F.
Parsons, Aaron R.
Dillon, Joshua Shane
Tegmark, Max Erik
Neben, Abraham Richard
Zheng, Haoxuan, Ph. D. Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Date Issued
January 2015
Journal
Physical Review D
Publisher
American Physical Society
Citation
Dillon, Joshua S., Max Tegmark, Adrian Liu, Aaron Ewall-Wice, Jacqueline N. Hewitt, Miguel F. Morales, Abraham R. Neben, Aaron R. Parsons, and Haoxuan Zheng. “Mapmaking for Precision 21 Cm Cosmology.” Phys. Rev. D 91, no. 2 (January 2015). © 2015 American Physical Society
Version
Final published version
Abstract
In order to study the “Cosmic Dawn” and the Epoch of Reionization with 21 cm tomography, we need to statistically separate the cosmological signal from foregrounds known to be orders of magnitude brighter. Over the last few years, we have learned much about the role our telescopes play in creating a putatively foreground-free region called the “EoR window.” In this work, we examine how an interferometer’s effects can be taken into account in a way that allows for the rigorous estimation of 21 cm power spectra from interferometric maps while mitigating foreground contamination and thus increasing sensitivity. This requires a precise understanding of the statistical relationship between the maps we make and the underlying true sky. While some of these calculations would be computationally infeasible if performed exactly, we explore several well-controlled approximations that make mapmaking and the calculation of map statistics much faster, especially for compact and highly redundant interferometers designed specifically for 21 cm cosmology. We demonstrate the utility of these methods and the parametrized trade-offs between accuracy and speed using one such telescope, the upcoming Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array, as a case study.
MIT Department
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics
MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research
Terms of Use
Article is made available in accordance with the publisher's policy and may be subject to US copyright law. Please refer to the publisher's site for terms of use.
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DOI of Published Version
https://doi.org/10.1103/PhysRevD.91.023002
