21cm Epoch of Reionisation Power Spectrum with Closure Phase using the Murchison Widefield Array

Fuente: arXiv
Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Tiwari, Himanshu, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Trott, Cathryn M., McKinley, Benjamin
Format: Preprint
Published: 2024
Subjects:
Online Access:
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
_version_ 1866913491569344512
author Tiwari, Himanshu
Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan
Trott, Cathryn M.
McKinley, Benjamin
author_facet Tiwari, Himanshu
Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan
Trott, Cathryn M.
McKinley, Benjamin
contents The radio interferometric closure phases can be a valuable tool for studying cosmological {H\scriptsize{I}}~from the early Universe. Closure phases have the advantage of being immune to element-based gains and associated calibration errors. Thus, calibration and errors therein, which are often sources of systematics limiting standard visibility-based approaches, can be avoided altogether in closure phase analysis. In this work, we present the first results of the closure phase power spectrum of {H\scriptsize{I}}~21-cm fluctuations using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), with $\sim 12$ hours of MWA-phase II observations centered around redshift, $z\approx 6.79$, during the Epoch of Reionisation. On analysing three redundant classes of baselines -- 14~m, 24~m, and 28~m equilateral triads, our estimates of the $2σ$ ($95\%$ confidence interval) 21-cm power spectra are $\lesssim (184)^2 pseudo \rm ~mK^2$ at ${k}_{||} = 0.36 $ $pseudo~h {\rm Mpc^{-1}}$ in the EoR1 field for the 14~m baseline triads, and $\lesssim (188)^2 pseudo \rm ~mK^2$ at $k_{||} = 0.18 $ $pseudo~h {\rm Mpc^{-1}}$ in the EoR0 field for the 24~m baseline triads. The ``$pseudo$'' units denote that the length scale and brightness temperature should be interpreted as close approximations. Our best estimates are still 3-4 orders high compared to the fiducial 21-cm power spectrum; however, our approach provides promising estimates of the power spectra even with a small amount of data. These data-limited estimates can be further improved if more datasets are included into the analysis. The evidence for excess noise has a possible origin in baseline-dependent systematics in the MWA data that will require careful baseline-based strategies to mitigate, even in standard visibility-based approaches.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2409_02906
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle 21cm Epoch of Reionisation Power Spectrum with Closure Phase using the Murchison Widefield Array
Tiwari, Himanshu
Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan
Trott, Cathryn M.
McKinley, Benjamin
Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
The radio interferometric closure phases can be a valuable tool for studying cosmological {H\scriptsize{I}}~from the early Universe. Closure phases have the advantage of being immune to element-based gains and associated calibration errors. Thus, calibration and errors therein, which are often sources of systematics limiting standard visibility-based approaches, can be avoided altogether in closure phase analysis. In this work, we present the first results of the closure phase power spectrum of {H\scriptsize{I}}~21-cm fluctuations using the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), with $\sim 12$ hours of MWA-phase II observations centered around redshift, $z\approx 6.79$, during the Epoch of Reionisation. On analysing three redundant classes of baselines -- 14~m, 24~m, and 28~m equilateral triads, our estimates of the $2σ$ ($95\%$ confidence interval) 21-cm power spectra are $\lesssim (184)^2 pseudo \rm ~mK^2$ at ${k}_{||} = 0.36 $ $pseudo~h {\rm Mpc^{-1}}$ in the EoR1 field for the 14~m baseline triads, and $\lesssim (188)^2 pseudo \rm ~mK^2$ at $k_{||} = 0.18 $ $pseudo~h {\rm Mpc^{-1}}$ in the EoR0 field for the 24~m baseline triads. The ``$pseudo$'' units denote that the length scale and brightness temperature should be interpreted as close approximations. Our best estimates are still 3-4 orders high compared to the fiducial 21-cm power spectrum; however, our approach provides promising estimates of the power spectra even with a small amount of data. These data-limited estimates can be further improved if more datasets are included into the analysis. The evidence for excess noise has a possible origin in baseline-dependent systematics in the MWA data that will require careful baseline-based strategies to mitigate, even in standard visibility-based approaches.
title 21cm Epoch of Reionisation Power Spectrum with Closure Phase using the Murchison Widefield Array
topic Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics
Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2409.02906