An MCMC approach to extracting the global 21-cm signal during the cosmic dawn from sky-averaged radio observations

Geraint J A Harker; Jonathan R. Pritchard; Jack O. Burns; Judd Bowman

doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.19766.x

An MCMC approach to extracting the global 21-cm signal during the cosmic dawn from sky-averaged radio observations

Geraint J A Harker, Jonathan R. Pritchard, Jack O. Burns, Judd Bowman

CLAS-NS: Earth and Space Exploration, School of (SESE)

Research output: Contribution to journal › Article › peer-review

39 Scopus citations

Abstract

Efforts are being made to observe the 21-cm signal from the 'cosmic dawn' using sky-averaged observations with individual radio dipoles. In this paper, we develop a model of the observations accounting for the 21-cm signal, foregrounds and several major instrumental effects. Given this model, we apply Markov Chain Monte Carlo techniques to demonstrate the ability of these instruments to separate the 21-cm signal from foregrounds and quantify their ability to constrain properties of the first galaxies. For concreteness, we investigate observations between 40 and 120MHz with the proposedDark Ages Radio Explorermission in lunar orbit, showing its potential for science return.

Original language	English (US)
Pages (from-to)	1070-1084
Number of pages	15
Journal	Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Volume	419
Issue number	2
DOIs	https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1365-2966.2011.19766.x
State	Published - Jan 2012

Keywords

Cosmology: theory
Diffuse radiation
Methods: statistical
Radio lines: general

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Astronomy and Astrophysics
Space and Planetary Science

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