CAREER: 21 cm Cosmology Observations

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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.