CAREER: 21 cm Cosmology Observations

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。Miguel Morales博士（华盛顿大学）将致力于从HI（中性氢）观测中移除天体物理和仪器前景，以实现21厘米宇宙学的时代。这将大大提高我们对宇宙中第一个发光物体的理解，并可能使精确的宇宙学和跨宇宙时间的暗能量研究成为可能。在再电离时期（EoR），宇宙信号比天体物理前景暗淡约5个数量级。原则上，主要前景的平滑光谱特性提供了一个维度，沿着这个维度，这些前景可以从信号中分离出来，但是这种分离由于仪器效应而变得非常复杂，因为仪器效应可以掩盖这种区别。莫拉莱斯领导着国际Murchison Widefield阵列EoR前景减法团队，并正在为未来的HI暗能量测量铺设道路，包括阿雷西博传统快速阿雷西博l波段馈电阵列测量，平方公里阵列前体研究理解望远镜系统项目。根据该合同进行的21厘米宇宙学研究将有助于提取EoR功率谱，并将为科学界提供前景减去图像立方体。这些图像立方体将向公众开放，以实现广泛的EoR科学，包括与星系调查的相互关联，非高斯特征，詹姆斯韦伯太空望远镜目标选择以及类星体斯特龙格林球的成像。此外，莫拉莱斯博士将实施一项本科研究计划，帮助社区学院的学生转到四年制研究型大学。社区大学转校生中女性和少数族裔学生的比例过高。通过帮助这些学生成功转入研究型大学，该项目可以增强学生进入研究生院和工业界的多样性和准备。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5). Dr, Miguel Morales (University of Washington) will work towards removing the astrophysical and instrumental foregrounds from HI (neutral hydrogen) observations in order to enable an era of 21 cm cosmology. This would greatly enhance our understanding of the first luminous objects in the universe, and could enable precision cosmography and dark energy studies across cosmic time. During the epoch of reionization (EoR) the cosmological signal is about five orders-of-magnitude fainter than the astrophysical foregrounds. In principle the smooth spectral characteristics of the major foregrounds provide a dimension along which these foregrounds may be separated from the signal, but this separation is greatly complicated by instrumental effects which can mask the distinction. Morales is leading the international Murchison Widefield Array EoR foreground subtraction team, and is laying a path for future HI dark energy measurements with the Arecibo Legacy Fast Arecibo L-band Feed Array Survey, Square Kilometer Array Precursor Research On Understanding Telescope Systematics project.The 21 cm cosmology research conducted under this award will help extract the EoR power spectrum and will provide foreground subtracted image cubes to the scientific community. These image cubes will be made available to the public in order to enable a broad range of EoR science, including cross-correlation with galaxy surveys, non-Gaussian signatures, James Webb Space Telescope target selection, and imaging of quasar Stromgren spheres. In addition, Dr. Morales will implement an undergraduate research program to help community college students transfer to four-year research universities. Community college transfer students are disproportionately women and under-represented minority students. By assisting these students to successfully transfer to a research university, the program could enhance the diversity and preparation of the student pipeline into graduate school and industry.