TY - JOUR
T1 - Probing the first stars and black holes in the early Universe with the Dark Ages Radio Explorer (DARE)
AU - Burns, Jack O.
AU - Lazio, J.
AU - Bale, S.
AU - Bowman, Judd
AU - Bradley, R.
AU - Carilli, C.
AU - Furlanetto, S.
AU - Harker, G.
AU - Loeb, A.
AU - Pritchard, J.
N1 - Funding Information:
The authors would like to thank the management of the NASA Ames Research Center (ARC) for their strong support and investment in the DARE concept, especially ARC Director P. Worden along with P. Klupar, B.J. Jaroux, as well as NASA Lunar Science Institute (NLSI) Director Y. Pendleton and NLSI Deputy Director G. Schmidt. We are particularly grateful to L. Webster, J. Bauman, H. Sanchez, D. Santiago, T. Soderman, and J. Baer at ARC, as well as I. O’Dwyer, A. Tanner, and R. Jarnot at JPL. We would like to acknowledge Ball Aerospace and, especially, L. Hardaway for their investment of resources and effort on the DARE concept. This concept was conceived and supported by the Lunar University Network for Astrophysics Research (LUNAR) ( http://lunar.colorado.edu ), headquartered at the University of Colorado Boulder, funded by the NLSI via Cooperative Agreement NNA09DB30A. Part of this research was conducted at that the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract to the National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
PY - 2012/2/1
Y1 - 2012/2/1
N2 - A concept for a new space-based cosmology mission called the Dark Ages Radio Explorer (DARE) is presented in this paper. DARE's science objectives include: (1) When did the first stars form? (2) When did the first accreting black holes form? (3) When did Reionization begin? (4) What surprises does the end of the Dark Ages hold (e.g.; Dark Matter decay)? DARE will use the highly-redshifted hyperfine 21-cm transition from neutral hydrogen to track the formation of the first luminous objects by their impact on the intergalactic medium during the end of the Dark Ages and during Cosmic Dawn (redshifts z = 11-35). It will measure the sky-averaged spin temperature of neutral hydrogen at the unexplored epoch 80-420 million years after the Big Bang, providing the first evidence of the earliest stars and galaxies to illuminate the cosmos and testing our models of galaxy formation. DARE's approach is to measure the expected spectral features in the sky-averaged, redshifted 21-cm signal over a radio bandpass of 40-120 MHz. DARE orbits the Moon for a mission lifetime of 3 years and takes data above the lunar farside, the only location in the inner solar system proven to be free of human-generated radio frequency interference and any significant ionosphere. The science instrument is composed of a low frequency radiometer, including electrically-short, tapered, bi-conical dipole antennas, a receiver, and a digital spectrometer. The smooth frequency response of the antennas and the differential spectral calibration approach using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique will be applied to detect the weak cosmic 21-cm signal in the presence of the intense solar system and Galactic foreground emissions.
AB - A concept for a new space-based cosmology mission called the Dark Ages Radio Explorer (DARE) is presented in this paper. DARE's science objectives include: (1) When did the first stars form? (2) When did the first accreting black holes form? (3) When did Reionization begin? (4) What surprises does the end of the Dark Ages hold (e.g.; Dark Matter decay)? DARE will use the highly-redshifted hyperfine 21-cm transition from neutral hydrogen to track the formation of the first luminous objects by their impact on the intergalactic medium during the end of the Dark Ages and during Cosmic Dawn (redshifts z = 11-35). It will measure the sky-averaged spin temperature of neutral hydrogen at the unexplored epoch 80-420 million years after the Big Bang, providing the first evidence of the earliest stars and galaxies to illuminate the cosmos and testing our models of galaxy formation. DARE's approach is to measure the expected spectral features in the sky-averaged, redshifted 21-cm signal over a radio bandpass of 40-120 MHz. DARE orbits the Moon for a mission lifetime of 3 years and takes data above the lunar farside, the only location in the inner solar system proven to be free of human-generated radio frequency interference and any significant ionosphere. The science instrument is composed of a low frequency radiometer, including electrically-short, tapered, bi-conical dipole antennas, a receiver, and a digital spectrometer. The smooth frequency response of the antennas and the differential spectral calibration approach using a Markov Chain Monte Carlo technique will be applied to detect the weak cosmic 21-cm signal in the presence of the intense solar system and Galactic foreground emissions.
KW - Cosmology: first stars, dark ages, reionization
KW - Instrumentation: detectors
KW - Radio lines: general
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U2 - 10.1016/j.asr.2011.10.014
DO - 10.1016/j.asr.2011.10.014
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:84855765918
SN - 0273-1177
VL - 49
SP - 433
EP - 450
JO - Advances in Space Research
JF - Advances in Space Research
IS - 3
ER -