Subscribe to the gold package and get unlimited access to Shamra Academy
Register a new userConstraining the epoch of reionization with the variance statistic: simulations of the LOFAR case
195
0
0.0
(
0
)
Ask ChatGPT about the research
No Arabic abstract
Several experiments are underway to detect the cosmic redshifted 21-cm signal from neutral hydrogen from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). Due to their very low signal-to-noise ratio, these observations aim for a statistical detection of the signal by measuring its power spectrum. We investigate the extraction of the variance of the signal as a first step towards detecting and constraining the global history of the EoR. Signal variance is the integral of the signals power spectrum, and it is expected to be measured with a high significance. We demonstrate this through results from a simulation and parameter estimation pipeline developed for the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR)-EoR experiment. We show that LOFAR should be able to detect the EoR in 600 hours of integration using the variance statistic. Additionally, the redshift ($z_r$) and duration ($Delta z$) of reionization can be constrained assuming a parametrization. We use an EoR simulation of $z_r = 7.68$ and $Delta z = 0.43$ to test the pipeline. We are able to detect the simulated signal with a significance of 4 standard deviations and extract the EoR parameters as $z_r = 7.72^{+0.37}_{-0.18}$ and $Delta z = 0.53^{+0.12}_{-0.23}$ in 600 hours, assuming that systematic errors can be adequately controlled. We further show that the significance of detection and constraints on EoR parameters can be improved by measuring the cross-variance of the signal by cross-correlating consecutive redshift bins.
rate research
Read More
We derive constraints on the thermal and ionization states of the intergalactic medium (IGM) at redshift $approx$ 9.1 using new upper limits on the 21-cm power spectrum measured by the LOFAR radio-telescope and a prior on the ionized fraction at that redshift estimated from recent cosmic microwave background (CMB) observations. We have used results from the reionization simulation code GRIZZLY and a Bayesian inference framework to constrain the parameters which describe the physical state of the IGM. We find that, if the gas heating remains negligible, an IGM with ionized fraction $gtrsim 0.13$ and a distribution of the ionized regions with a characteristic size $gtrsim 8 ~h^{-1}$ comoving megaparsec (Mpc) and a full width at the half maximum (FWHM) $gtrsim 16 ~h^{-1}$ Mpc is ruled out. For an IGM with a uniform spin temperature $T_{rm S} gtrsim 3$ K, no constraints on the ionized component can be computed. If the large-scale fluctuations of the signal are driven by spin temperature fluctuations, an IGM with a volume fraction $lesssim 0.34$ of heated regions with a temperature larger than CMB, average gas temperature 7-160 K and a distribution of the heated regions with characteristic size 3.5-70 $h^{-1}$ Mpc and FWHM of $lesssim 110$ $h^{-1}$ Mpc is ruled out. These constraints are within the 95 per cent credible intervals. With more stringent future upper limits from LOFAR at multiple redshifts, the constraints will become tighter and will exclude an increasingly large region of the parameter space.
Future high redshift 21-cm experiments will suffer from a high degree of contamination, due both to astrophysical foregrounds and to non-astrophysical and instrumental effects. In order to reliably extract the cosmological signal from the observed data, it is essential to understand very well all data components and their influence on the extracted signal. Here we present simulated astrophysical foregrounds datacubes and discuss their possible statistical effects on the data. The foreground maps are produced assuming 5 deg x 5 deg windows that match those expected to be observed by the LOFAR Epoch-of-Reionization (EoR) key science project. We show that with the expected LOFAR-EoR sky and receiver noise levels, which amount to ~52 mK at 150 MHz after 300 hours of total observing time, a simple polynomial fit allows a statistical reconstruction of the signal. We also show that the polynomial fitting will work for maps with realistic yet idealised instrument response, i.e., a response that includes only a uniform uv coverage as a function of frequency and ignores many other uncertainties. Polarized galactic synchrotron maps that include internal polarization and a number of Faraday screens along the line of sight are also simulated. The importance of these stems from the fact that the LOFAR instrument, in common with all current interferometric EoR experiments has an instrumentally polarized response.
The first generation of redshifted 21 cm detection experiments, carried out with arrays like LOFAR, MWA and GMRT, will have a very low signal-to-noise ratio per resolution element (sim 0.2). In addition, whereas the variance of the cosmological signal decreases on scales larger than the typical size of ionization bubbles, the variance of the formidable galactic foregrounds increases, making it hard to disentangle the two on such large scales. The poor sensitivity on small scales on the one hand, and the foregrounds effect on large scales on the other hand, make direct imaging of the Epoch of Reionization of the Universe very difficult, and detection of the signal therefore is expected to be statistical.Despite these hurdles, in this paper we argue that for many reionization scenarios low resolution images could be obtained from the expected data. This is because at the later stages of the process one still finds very large pockets of neutral regions in the IGM, reflecting the clustering of the large-scale structure, which stays strong up to scales of sim 120 comoving Mpc/h (sim 1 degree). The coherence of the emission on those scales allows us to reach sufficient S/N (sim 3) so as to obtain reionization 21 cm images. Such images will be extremely valuable for answering many cosmological questions but above all they will be a very powerful tool to test our control of the systematics in the data. The existence of this typical scale (sim 120 comoving Mpc/h) also argues for designing future EoR experiments, e.g., with SKA, with a field of view of at least 4 degree.
We combine observational data on a dozen independent cosmic properties at high-$z$ with the information on reionization drawn from the spectra of distant luminous sources and the cosmic microwave background (CMB) to constrain the interconnected evolution of galaxies and the intergalactic medium since the dark ages. The only acceptable solutions are concentrated in two narrow sets. In one of them reionization proceeds in two phases: a first one driven by Population III stars, completed at $zsim 10$, and after a short recombination period a second one driven by normal galaxies, completed at $zsim 6$. In the other set both kinds of sources work in parallel until full reionization at $zsim 6$. The best solution with double reionization gives excellent fits to all the observed cosmic histories, but the CMB optical depth is 3-$sigma$ larger than the recent estimate from the Planck data. Alternatively, the best solution with single reionization gives less good fits to the observed star formation rate density and cold gas mass density histories, but the CMB optical depth is consistent with that estimate. We make several predictions, testable with future observations, that should discriminate between the two reionization scenarios. As a byproduct our models provide a natural explanation to some characteristic features of the cosmic properties at high-$z$, as well as to the origin of globular clusters.
Detection of the 21-cm signal coming from the epoch of reionization (EoR) is challenging especially because, even after removing the foregrounds, the residual Stokes $I$ maps contain leakage from polarized emission that can mimic the signal. Here, we discuss the instrumental polarization of LOFAR and present realistic simulations of the leakages between Stokes parameters. From the LOFAR observations of polarized emission in the 3C196 field, we have quantified the level of polarization leakage caused by the nominal model beam of LOFAR, and compared it with the EoR signal using power spectrum analysis. We found that at 134--166 MHz, within the central 4$^circ$ of the field the $(Q,U)rightarrow I$ leakage power is lower than the EoR signal at $k<0.3$ Mpc$^{-1}$. The leakage was found to be localized around a Faraday depth of 0, and the rms of the leakage as a fraction of the rms of the polarized emission was shown to vary between 0.2-0.3%, both of which could be utilized in the removal of leakage. Moreover, we could define an `EoR window in terms of the polarization leakage in the cylindrical power spectrum above the PSF-induced wedge and below $k_parallelsim 0.5$ Mpc$^{-1}$, and the window extended up to $k_parallelsim 1$ Mpc$^{-1}$ at all $k_perp$ when 70% of the leakage had been removed. These LOFAR results show that even a modest polarimetric calibration over a field of view of $lesssim 4^circ$ in the future arrays like SKA will ensure that the polarization leakage remains well below the expected EoR signal at the scales of 0.02-1 Mpc$^{-1}$.
Log in to be able to interact and post comments
comments
Fetching comments
Sign in to be able to follow your search criteria
