21-cm Power Spectrum Research Articles

21-cm power spectrum and ionization bias as a probe of long-mode modulated non-Gaussian sky

ABSTRACT The observed hemispherical power asymmetry in cosmic microwave background radiation can be explained by long-wavelength mode (long-mode) modulation. In this paper, we study the possibility of detecting this effect in the angular power spectrum of the 21-cm brightness temperature. For this task, we study the effect of the neutral hydrogen distribution on the angular power spectrum. This is done by formulating the bias parameter of the ionized fraction to the underlying matter distribution. We also discuss the possibility that the long-mode modulation is accompanied by a primordial non-Gaussianity of local type. In this case, we obtain the angular power spectrum with two effects of primordial non-Gaussianity and long-mode modulation. Finally, we show that the primordial non-Gaussianity enhances the long-mode modulated power of the 21-cm signal via the non-Gaussian scale-dependent bias up to four orders of magnitude. Accordingly, observations of the 21-cm signal with upcoming surveys, such as the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), will probably be capable of detecting hemispherical power asymmetry in the context of long-mode modulation.

The first power spectrum limit on the 21-cm signal of neutral hydrogen during the Cosmic Dawn at z = 20–25 from LOFAR

ABSTRACT Observations of the redshifted 21-cm hyperfine line of neutral hydrogen from early phases of the Universe such as Cosmic Dawn and the Epoch of Reionization promise to open a new window onto the early formation of stars and galaxies. We present the first upper limits on the power spectrum of redshifted 21-cm brightness temperature fluctuations in the redshift range z = 19.8–25.2 (54–68 MHz frequency range) using 14 h of data obtained with the LOFAR-Low Band Antenna (LBA) array. We also demonstrate the application of a multiple pointing calibration technique to calibrate the LOFAR-LBA dual-pointing observations centred on the North Celestial Pole and the radio galaxy 3C220.3. We observe an unexplained excess of $\sim 30\!-\!50{{\ \rm per\ cent}}$ in Stokes / noise compared to Stokes V for the two observed fields, which decorrelates on ≳12 s and might have a physical origin. We show that enforcing smoothness of gain errors along frequency direction during calibration reduces the additional variance in Stokes I compared Stokes V introduced by the calibration on sub-band level. After subtraction of smooth foregrounds, we achieve a 2σ upper limit on the 21-cm power spectrum of $\Delta _{21}^2 \lt (14561\, \text{mK})^2$ at $k\sim 0.038\, h\, \text{cMpc}^{-1}$ and $\Delta _{21}^2 \lt (14886\, \text{mK})^2$ at $k\sim 0.038 \, h\, \text{cMpc}^{-1}$ for the 3C220 and NCP fields respectively and both upper limits are consistent with each other. The upper limits for the two fields are still dominated by systematics on most k modes.

Redshift-space distortions of the H i 21-cm intensity mapping signal due to the internal motions within galaxies

ABSTRACTThe H i 21-cm intensity mapping signal experiences redshift-space distortions due to the motion of the galaxies which contain the H i as well as the motions of the H i gas within the galaxies. A detailed modelling is essential if this signal is to be used for precision cosmology. Considering dark-matter-only simulations where the H i is assumed to reside in galaxies which are associated with haloes, in this work we introduce a technique to incorporate the H i motions within the galaxies. This is achieved through a line profile which accounts for both the rotational and random (thermal and turbulent) motions of the H i within galaxies. The functional form of the double-horned line profiles used here is motivated by observations of z = 0 spiral galaxies. Analyzing the simulated 21-cm power spectrum over the redshift range 1 ≤ z ≤ 6 we find that the H i motions within galaxies make a significant contribution that is manifested as an enhancement in the Finger of God (FoG) effect which can be modelled reasonably well through a Lorentzian damping profile with a single free parameter σp. The value of σp is significantly enhanced if motions within the galaxies are included. This is particularly important at z > 3 where σp is dominated by the internal motions and a measurement of the FoG effect here could provide a handle on the line profiles of high-redshift galaxies.

Testing the scale-dependent hemispherical asymmetry with the 21-cm power spectrum from the epoch of reionization

Abstract Hemispherical power asymmetry has emerged as a new challenge to cosmology in early Universe. While the cosmic microwave background (CMB) measurements indicated the asymmetry amplitude A ≃ 0.07 at the CMB scale $k_{\rm CMB}\simeq 0.0045\, {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$, the high-redshift quasar observations found no significant deviation from statistical isotropy. This conflict can be reconciled in some scale-dependent asymmetry models. We put forwards a new parametrization of scale-dependent asymmetric power spectrum, inspired by a multispeed inflation model. The 21-cm power spectrum from the epoch of reionization can be used to constrain the scale-dependent hemispherical asymmetry. We demonstrate that an optimum, multifrequency observation by the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) Phase 2 can impose a constraint on the amplitude of the power asymmetry anomaly at the level of ΔA ≃ 0.2 at $0.056 \lesssim k_{\rm 21cm} \lesssim 0.15 \, {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$. This limit may be further improved by an order of magnitude as ΔA ≃ 0.01 with a cosmic variance limited experiment such as the Omniscope.

The impact of non-Gaussianity on the error covariance for observations of the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) 21-cm power spectrum

Recent simulations show the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) 21-cm signal to be inherently non-Gaussian whereby the error covariance matrix |$\boldsymbol{\sf C}_{ij}$| of the 21-cm power spectrum (PS) contains a trispectrum contribution that would be absent if the signal were Gaussian. Using the binned power spectrum and trispectrum from simulations, here we present a methodology for incorporating these with the baseline distribution and system noise to make error predictions for observations with any radio-interferometric array. Here we consider the upcoming SKA-Low. Non-Gaussianity enhances the errors introducing a positive deviation Δ relative to the Gaussian predictions. Δ increases with observation time tobs and saturates as the errors approach the cosmic variance. Considering tobs = 1024 hours where a 5σ detection is possible at all redshifts 7 ≤ z ≤ 13, in the absence of foregrounds we find that the deviations are important at small k where we have |$\Delta \sim 40\!-\!100 {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$| at |$k \sim 0.04 \,\rm Mpc^{-1}$| for some of the redshifts and also at intermediate |$k \, (\sim 0.4 \,\rm Mpc^{-1})$| where we have |$\Delta \sim 200 {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$| at z = 7. Non-Gaussianity also introduces correlations between the errors in different k bins, and we find both correlations and anticorrelations with the correlation coefficient value spanning −0.4 ≤ rij ≤ 0.8. Incorporating the foreground wedge, Δ continues to be important (⁠|$\gt 50 {{\ \rm per\ cent}}$|⁠) at z = 7. We conclude that non-Gaussianity makes a significant contribution to the errors and this is important in the context of the future instruments that aim to achieve high-sensitivity measurements of the EoR 21-cm PS.

Signature of excess radio background in the 21-cm global signal and power spectrum

The recent tentative detection by the EDGES Low-Band antenna of the hydrogen 21-cm line from cosmic dawn, if confirmed, is the first ever signature observed from the epoch of primordial star formation. However, the magnitude and the shape of this signal are incompatible with standard astrophysical predictions, requiring either colder than expected gas, or an excess radio background above the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB) radiation. In this paper we explore the latter option, investigating possible 21-cm signals in models with a phenomenological excess radio background together with the standard astrophysical modeling. Assuming uniform radiation with a synchrotron-like spectrum existing throughout cosmic history, we show that such a radio background, in addition to explaining the EDGES Low-Band signal, enhances the power spectrum. The signal during cosmic dawn and reionization strongly depends on both the intensity of the radio background and the astrophysical parameters. We verify the broad agreement of our models with the detected feature, including additional constraints from the EDGES High-Band data, high-redshift quasars, and observational limits on the extragalactic radio background. The data imply a lower limit on the star formation efficiency of 2.8\%, an upper limit on the minimum mass of star-forming halos of M$_{\rm h}\sim 10^9$ M$_\odot$ at $z = 17$, and a lower limit on the excess radio background of 1.9 times the CMB at the 78 MHz cosmic dawn frequency (corresponding to 0.1\% of the CMB at 1.42 GHz). The properties of X-ray sources remain unconstrained. We also show that during the dark ages, such a radio background saturates the 21-cm signal, imprinting a unique signature in both the global signal and the power spectrum.

Position-dependent power spectra of the 21-cm signal from the epoch of reionization

The 21-cm signal from the epoch of reionization is non-Gaussian. Current radio telescopes are focused on detecting the 21-cm power spectrum, but in the future the Square Kilometre Array is anticipated to provide a first measurement of the bispectrum. Previous studies have shown that the position-dependent power spectrum is a simple and efficient way to probe the squeezed-limit bispectrum. In this approach, the survey is divided into subvolumes and the correlation between the local power spectrum and the corresponding mean density of the subvolume is computed. This correlation is equivalent to an integral of the bispectrum in the squeezed limit, but is much simpler to implement than the usual bispectrum estimators. It also has a clear physical interpretation: it describes how the small-scale power spectrum of tracers such as galaxies and the 21-cm signal respond to a large-scale environment. Reionization naturally couples large and small scales as ionizing radiation produced by galactic sources can travel up to tens of Megaparsecs through the intergalactic medium during this process. Here we apply the position-dependent power spectrum approach to fluctuations in the 21-cm background from reionization. We show that this statistic has a distinctive evolution in time that can be understood with a simple analytic model. We also show that the statistic can easily distinguish between simple “inside-out” and “outside-in” models of reionization. The position-dependent power spectrum is thus a promising method to validate the reionization signal and to extract higher-order information on this process.

The impact of interference excision on 21-cm epoch of reionization power spectrum analyses

We investigate the implications of interference detection for experiments that are pursuing a detection of the redshifted 21-cm signals from the Epoch of Reionization. Interference detection causes samples to be sporadically flagged and rejected. As a necessity to reduce the data volume, flagged samples are typically (implicitly) interpolated during time or frequency averaging or uv-gridding. This so-far unexplored systematic biases the 21-cm power spectrum, and it is important to understand this bias for current 21-cm experiments as well as the upcoming SKA Epoch of Reionization experiment. We analyse simulated data using power spectrum analysis and Gaussian process regression. We find that the combination of flagging and averaging causes tiny spectral fluctuations, resulting in `flagging excess power'. This excess power does not substantially average down over time and, without extra mitigation techniques, can exceed the power of realistic models of the 21-cm reionization signals in LOFAR observations. We mitigate the bias by i) implementing a novel way to average data using a Gaussian-weighted interpolation scheme; ii) using unitary instead of inverse-variance weighting of visibilities; and iii) using low-resolution forward modelling of the data. After these modifications, which have been integrated in the LOFAR EoR processing pipeline, the excess power reduces by approximately three orders of magnitude, and is no longer preventing a detection of the 21-cm signals.

Deep learning from 21-cm tomography of the Cosmic Dawn and Reionization

The 21-cm power spectrum (PS) has been shown to be a powerful discriminant of reionization and cosmic dawn astrophysical parameters. However, the 21-cm tomographic signal is highly non-Gaussian. Therefore there is additional information which is wasted if only the PS is used for parameter recovery. Here we showcase astrophysical parameter recovery directly from 21-cm images, using deep learning with convolutional neural networks (CNN). Using a database of 2D images taken from 10,000 21-cm lightcones (each generated from different cosmological initial conditions), we show that a CNN is able to recover parameters describing the first galaxies: (i) Tvir , their minimum host halo virial temperatures (or masses) capable of hosting efficient star formation; (ii) {\zeta} , their typical ionizing efficiencies; (iii) LX/SFR , their typical soft-band X-ray luminosity to star formation rate; and (iv) E0 , the minimum X-ray energy capable of escaping the galaxy into the IGM. For most of their allowed ranges, log Tvir and log LX/SFR are recovered with < 1% uncertainty, while {\zeta} and E0 are recovered within 10% uncertainty. Our results are roughly comparable to the accuracy obtained from Monte Carlo Markov Chain sampling of the PS with 21CMMC for the two mock observations analyzed previously, although we caution that we do not yet include noise and foreground contaminants in this proof-of-concept study.

Gridded and direct Epoch of Reionisation bispectrum estimates using the Murchison Widefield Array

AbstractWe apply two methods to estimate the 21-cm bispectrum from data taken within the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR) project of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). Using data acquired with the Phase II compact array allows a direct bispectrum estimate to be undertaken on the multiple redundantly spaced triangles of antenna tiles, as well as an estimate based on data gridded to the uv-plane. The direct and gridded bispectrum estimators are applied to 21 h of high-band (167–197 MHz; z = 6.2–7.5) data from the 2016 and 2017 observing seasons. Analytic predictions for the bispectrum bias and variance for point-source foregrounds are derived. We compare the output of these approaches, the foreground contribution to the signal, and future prospects for measuring the bispectra with redundant and non-redundant arrays. We find that some triangle configurations yield bispectrum estimates that are consistent with the expected noise level after 10 h, while equilateral configurations are strongly foreground-dominated. Careful choice of triangle configurations may be made to reduce foreground bias that hinders power spectrum estimators, and the 21-cm bispectrum may be accessible in less time than the 21-cm power spectrum for some wave modes, with detections in hundreds of hours.

A Tapered Gridded Estimator (TGE) for the multifrequency angular power spectrum (MAPS) and the cosmological H i21-cm power spectrum

In this work we present a new approach to estimate the power spectrum $P({\bf k})$ of redshifted HI 21-cm brightness temperature fluctuations. The MAPS $C_{\ell}(\nu_a,\nu_b)$ completely quantifies the second order statistics of the sky signal under the assumption that the signal is statistically homogeneous and isotropic on the sky. Here we generalize an already existing visibility based estimator for $C_{\ell}$, namely TGE, to develop an estimator for $C_{\ell}(\nu_a,\nu_b)$. The 21-cm power spectrum is the Fourier transform of $C_{\ell}(\Delta \nu)$ with respect to $\Delta \nu=\mid \nu_a-\nu_b \mid$, and we use this to estimate $P({\bf k})$. Using simulations of $150 \, {\rm MHz}$ GMRT observations, we find that this estimator is able to recover $P(k)$ with an accuracy of $5-20 \%$ over a reasonably large $k$ range even when the data in $80 \%$ randomly chosen frequency channels is flagged.

Turbulent power spectrum in warm and cold neutral medium using the Galactic H i21 cm emission

Small-scale fluctuations of different tracers of the interstellar the medium can be used to study the nature of turbulence in astrophysical scales. Of these, the `continuum' emission traces the fluctuations integrated along the line of sight whereas, the spectral line tracers give the information along different velocity channels as well. Recently, Miville-Desch\^enes et al. (2016) have measured the intensity fluctuation power spectrum of the continuum dust emission, and found a power law behaviour with a power law index of $-2.9 \pm 0.1$ for a region of our Galaxy. Here, we study the same region using high-velocity resolution 21-cm emission from the diffuse neutral medium, and estimate the power spectrum at different spectral channels. The measured 21-cm power spectrum also follows a power law, however, we see a significant variation in the power law index with velocity. The value of the power-law index estimated from the integrated map for different components are quite different which is indicative of the different nature of turbulence depending on temperature, density and ionization fraction. We also measure the power spectra after smoothing the 21 cm emission to velocity resolution ranging from $1.03$ to $13.39~{\rm km~s^{-1}}$, but the power spectrum remains unchanged within the error bar. This indicates that the observed fluctuations are dominantly due to density fluctuations, and we can only constrain the power-law index of velocity structure function of $0.0 \pm 1.1$ which is consistent with the predicted Kolmogorov turbulence $(\gamma=2/3)$ and also with a shock-dominated medium $(\gamma=1.0)$.

On the Prospects of Measuring the Cosmic Dawn 21-cm Power Spectrum using the Upgraded Giant Meterwave Radio Telescope (uGMRT)

A recent observation by the EDGES collaboration shows a strong absorption signal in the global 21-cm spectrum from around a redshift of $z = 17$. This absorption is stronger than the maximum prediction by existing models and indicates that the spatial fluctuations of the \HI 21-cm brightness temperature at Cosmic Dawn could be an order of magnitude larger than previously expected. In this paper, we investigate the prospects of detecting the \HI 21-cm power spectrum from Cosmic Dawn using uGMRT. We find that a $10\sigma$ detection of the enhanced \HI 21-cm signal power spectrum is possible within $70, 140$ and $400$ Hours of observation for an optimistic, moderate and pessimistic scenario respectively, using the Band-1 of uGMRT. This could be an useful probe of the interaction between the baryon and dark matter particles in the early Universe. We also present a comparison of the uGMRT predictions with those for the future SKA-Low.

Impact of inhomogeneous CMB heating of gas on the HI 21-cm signal during dark ages

Observations of redshifted 21-cm signal from neutral hydrogen (HI) appear to be the most promising probe of the cosmic dark ages. The signal carries information about the thermal state along with density distribution of the intergalactic medium (IGM). The cosmic microwave background radiation (CMBR), through its interaction with charged particles, plays a major role in determining the kinetic and spin temperature of HI gas in the IGM during dark ages. A Spatially fluctuating ionization fraction, which is caused by inhomogeneous recombinations, causes heat transfer from the CMBR to the IGM gas inhomogeneous. We revisit the impact of this inhomogeneous heat transfer on spatial fluctuations in the observed HI 21-cm signal over a large redshift range during dark ages. Our study shows that the effect negatively impacts fluctuations in the HI spin temperature and results in an enhanced HI 21-cm power spectrum. We find that the effect is particularly important during the transition of the gas kinetic temperature being coupled to the CMBR to fully decoupled from it, i.e., in the redshift range $30 \lesssim z \lesssim 300$. It is found that, on the average the HI power spectrum, $P_{T_b}(k, z)$ is enhanced by $\sim 4\%$, $\sim10 \%$ , $\sim 20\%$, and $\sim 30 \%$ at redshifts $60$, $90$, $140$, and $200$ respectively at $k=0.1 \, {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$. The effect becomes even more significant at lower values of $k_{\parallel}^2/k^2$ due to the reduced dominance of the peculiar velocity. It is observed that the power spectrum is enhanced by $\sim 49\%$ and $\sim 93\%$ at redshifts $140$ and $200$ respectively at $k=0.1 \, {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ for $k_{\parallel}^2/k^2=0$. This enhancement has a weak $k$-mode dependence.

The indirect influence of quasars on reionization

ABSTRACT The exact role of quasars during the Epoch of Reionization remains uncertain. With consensus leaning towards quasars producing a negligible amount of ionizing photons, we pose an alternate question: Can quasars indirectly contribute to reionization by allowing ionizing photons from stars to escape more easily? Using the semi-analytic galaxy evolution model to evolve a galaxy population through cosmic time, we construct an idealized scenario in which the escape fraction of stellar ionizing photons (fesc) is boosted following quasar wind events, potentially for several dynamical times. We find that under this scenario, the mean value of fesc as a function of galaxy stellar mass peaks for intermediate mass galaxies. This mass dependence will have consequences for the 21-cm power spectrum, enhancing power at small scales and suppressing it at large scales. This hints that whilst quasars may not directly contribute to the ionizing photon budget, they could influence reionization indirectly by altering the topology of ionized regions.

Imprints of quasar duty cycle on the 21-cm signal from the Epochof Reionization

Quasars contribute to the 21-cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) primarily through their ionizing UV and X-ray emission. However, their radio continuum and Lyman-band emission also regulates the 21-cm signal in their direct environment, potentially leaving the imprint of their duty cycle. We develop a model for the radio and UV luminosity functions of quasars from the EoR, and constrain it using recent observations. Our model is consistent with the z~7.5 quasar from Banados et al 2017, and also predicts only a few quasars suitable for 21-cm forest observations (10mJy) in the sky. We exhibit a new effect on the 21-cm signal observed against the CMB: a radio-loud quasar can leave the imprint of its duty cycle on the 21-cm tomography. We apply this effect in a cosmological simulation and conclude that the effect of typical radio-loud quasars is most likely negligible in an SKA field of view. For a 1-10mJy quasar the effect is stronger though hardly observable at SKA resolution. Then we study the contribution of the lyman band Ly-alpha to Ly-beta) emission of quasars to the Wouthuisen-Field coupling. The collective effect of quasars on the 21-cm power spectrum is larger than the thermal noise at low k, though featureless. However, a distinctive pattern around the brightest quasars in an SKA field of view may be observable in the tomography, encoding the duration of their duty cycle. This pattern has a high signal-to-noise ratio for the brightest quasar in a typical SKA shallow survey.

Statistical 21-cm Signal Separation via Gaussian Process Regression Analysis

Detecting and characterizing the Epoch of Reionization and Cosmic Dawn via the redshifted 21-cm hyperfine line of neutral hydrogen will revolutionize the study of the formation of the first stars, galaxies, black holes and intergalactic gas in the infant Universe. The wealth of information encoded in this signal is, however, buried under foregrounds that are many orders of magnitude brighter. These must be removed accurately and precisely in order to reveal the feeble 21-cm signal. This requires not only the modeling of the Galactic and extra-galactic emission, but also of the often stochastic residuals due to imperfect calibration of the data caused by ionospheric and instrumental distortions. To stochastically model these effects, we introduce a new method based on `Gaussian Process Regression' (GPR) which is able to statistically separate the 21-cm signal from most of the foregrounds and other contaminants. Using simulated LOFAR-EoR data that include strong instrumental mode-mixing, we show that this method is capable of recovering the 21-cm signal power spectrum across the entire range $k = 0.07 - 0.3 \ \rm{h\, cMpc^{-1}}$. The GPR method is most optimal, having minimal and controllable impact on the 21-cm signal, when the foregrounds are correlated on frequency scales $\gtrsim 3$\,MHz and the rms of the signal has $\sigma_{\mathrm{21cm}} \gtrsim 0.1\,\sigma_{\mathrm{noise}}$. This signal separation improves the 21-cm power-spectrum sensitivity by a factor $\gtrsim 3$ compared to foreground avoidance strategies and enables the sensitivity of current and future 21-cm instruments such as the {\sl Square Kilometre Array} to be fully exploited.

Modelling redshift space distortion in the post-reionization H i 21-cm power spectrum

The post-reionization ${\rm HI}$ 21-cm signal is an excellent candidate for precision cosmology, this however requires accurate modelling of the expected signal. Sarkar et al. (2016) have simulated the real space ${\rm HI}$ 21-cm signal, and have modelled the ${\rm HI}$ power spectrum as $P_{{\rm HI}}(k)=b^2 P(k)$ where $P(k)$ is the dark matter power spectrum and $b(k)$ is a (possibly complex) scale dependent bias for which fitting formulas have been provided. This paper extends these simulations to incorporate redshift space distortion and predict the expected redshift space ${\rm HI}$ 21-cm power spectrum $P^s_{{\rm HI}}(k_{\perp},k_{\parallel})$ using two different prescriptions for the ${\rm HI}$ distributions and peculiar velocities. We model $P^s_{{\rm HI}}(k_{\perp},k_{\parallel})$ assuming that it is the product of $P_{{\rm HI}}(k)=b^2 P(k)$ with a Kaiser enhancement term and a Finger of God (FoG) damping which has $\sigma_p$ the pair velocity dispersion as a free parameter. Considering several possibilities for the bias and the damping profile, we find that the models with a scale dependent bias and a Lorentzian damping profile best fit the simulated $P^s_{{\rm HI}}(k_{\perp},k_{\parallel})$ over the entire range $1 \le z \le 6$. The best fit value of $\sigma_p$ falls approximately as $(1+z)^{-m}$ with $m=2$ and $1.2$ respectively for the two different prescriptions. The model predictions are consistent with the simulations for $k < 0.3 \, {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ over the entire $z$ range for the monopole $P^s_0(k)$, and at $z \le 3$ for the quadrupole $P^s_2(k)$. At $z \ge 4$ the models underpredict $P^s_2(k)$ at large $k$, and the fit is restricted to $k < 0.15 \, {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$.

Small-scale effects of thermal inflation on halo abundance at high- z , galaxy substructure abundance, and 21-cm power spectrum

We study the impact of thermal inflation on the formation of cosmological structures and present astrophysical observables which can be used to constrain and possibly probe the thermal inflation scenario. These are dark matter halo abundance at high redshifts, satellite galaxy abundance in the Milky Way, and fluctuation in the 21-cm radiation background before the epoch of reionization. The thermal inflation scenario leaves a characteristic signature on the matter power spectrum by boosting the amplitude at a specific wave number determined by the number of e-foldings during thermal inflation (${N}_{bc}$), and strongly suppressing the amplitude for modes at smaller scales. For a reasonable range of parameter space, one of the consequences is the suppression of minihalo formation at high redshifts and that of satellite galaxies in the Milky Way. While this effect is substantial, it is degenerate with other cosmological or astrophysical effects. The power spectrum of the 21-cm background probes this impact more directly, and its observation may be the best way to constrain the thermal inflation scenario due to the characteristic signature in the power spectrum. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) in phase 1 (SKA1) has sensitivity large enough to achieve this goal for models with ${N}_{bc}\ensuremath{\gtrsim}26$ if a 10000-hr observation is performed. The final phase SKA, with anticipated sensitivity about an order of magnitude higher, seems more promising and will cover a wider parameter space.

Constraining Polarized Foregrounds for EoR Experiments. II. Polarization Leakage Simulations in the Avoidance Scheme

Abstract A critical challenge in the observation of the redshifted 21 cm line is its separation from bright Galactic and extragalactic foregrounds. In particular, the instrumental leakage of polarized foregrounds, which undergo significant Faraday rotation as they propagate through the interstellar medium, may harmfully contaminate the 21 cm power spectrum. We develop a formalism to describe the leakage due to instrumental widefield effects in visibility-based power spectra measured with redundant arrays, extending the delay-spectrum approach presented in Parsons et al. We construct polarized sky models and propagate them through the instrument model to simulate realistic full-sky observations with the Precision Array to Probe the Epoch of Reionization. We find that the leakage due to a population of polarized point sources is expected to be higher than diffuse Galactic polarization at any k mode for a 30 m reference baseline. For the same reference baseline, a foreground-free window at k &gt; 0.3 h Mpc−1 can be defined in terms of leakage from diffuse Galactic polarization even under the most pessimistic assumptions. If measurements of polarized foreground power spectra or a model of polarized foregrounds are given, our method is able to predict the polarization leakage in actual 21 cm observations, potentially enabling its statistical subtraction from the measured 21 cm power spectrum.