A STUDY OF FUNDAMENTAL LIMITATIONS TO STATISTICAL DETECTION OF REDSHIFTED H i FROM THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION
A STUDY OF FUNDAMENTAL LIMITATIONS TO STATISTICAL DETECTION OF REDSHIFTED H i FROM THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION
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DOI：
10.1088/0004-637x/776/1/6
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发表时间：
2013-08
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通讯作者：
N. Thyagarajan;N. Udaya Shankar;R. Subrahmanyan;W. Arcus;G. Bernardi;J. Bowman;F. Briggs;J. Bunton;R. Cappallo;B. Corey;L. deSouza;D. Emrich;B. Gaensler;R. Goeke;L. Greenhill;B. Hazelton;D. Herne;J. Hewitt;M. Johnston-Hollitt;D. Kaplan;J. C. Kasper;B. B. Kincaid-B.;R. Koenig;E. Kratzenberg;C. Lonsdale;M. Lynch;S. McWhirter;D. Mitchell;M. Morales;E. Morgan;D. Oberoi;S. Ord;J. Pathikulangara;R. Remillard;Alan E. E. Rogers-Alan-E.-E.-Rogers-2246980767;D. Roshi;J. Salah;R. Sault;K. Srivani;Jamie B. Stevens;P. Thiagaraj;S. Tingay;R. Wayth;M. Waterson;R. Webster;A. Whitney;A. Williams;C. Williams;J. Wyithe
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作者：
N. Thyagarajan;N. Udaya Shankar;R. Subrahmanyan;W. Arcus;G. Bernardi;J. Bowman;F. Briggs;J. Bunton;R. Cappallo;B. Corey;L. deSouza;D. Emrich;B. Gaensler;R. Goeke;L. Greenhill;B. Hazelton;D. Herne;J. Hewitt;M. Johnston-Hollitt;D. Kaplan;J. C. Kasper;B. B. Kincaid-B.;R. Koenig;E. Kratzenberg;C. Lonsdale;M. Lynch;S. McWhirter;D. Mitchell;M. Morales;E. Morgan;D. Oberoi;S. Ord;J. Pathikulangara;R. Remillard;Alan E. E. Rogers-Alan-E.-E.-Rogers-2246980767;D. Roshi;J. Salah;R. Sault;K. Srivani;Jamie B. Stevens;P. Thiagaraj;S. Tingay;R. Wayth;M. Waterson;R. Webster;A. Whitney;A. Williams;C. Williams;J. Wyithe
In this paper, we explore for the first time the relative magnitudes of three fundamental sources of uncertainty, namely, foreground contamination, thermal noise, and sample variance, in detecting the H i power spectrum from the epoch of reionization (EoR). We derive limits on the sensitivity of a Fourier synthesis telescope to detect EoR based on its array configuration and a statistical representation of images made by the instrument. We use the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) configuration for our studies. Using a unified framework for estimating signal and noise components in the H i power spectrum, we derive an expression for and estimate the contamination from extragalactic point-like sources in three-dimensional k-space. Sensitivity for EoR H i power spectrum detection is estimated for different observing modes with MWA. With 1000 hr of observing on a single field using the 128 tile MWA, EoR detection is feasible (S/N >1 for k ≲ 0.8 Mpc−1). Bandpass shaping and refinements to the EoR window are found to be effective in containing foreground contamination, which makes the instrument tolerant to imaging errors. We find that for a given observing time, observing many independent fields of view does not offer an advantage over a single field observation when thermal noise dominates over other uncertainties in the derived power spectrum.
