Journal article
HERA Phase i Limits on the Cosmic 21 cm Signal: Constraints on Astrophysics and Cosmology during the Epoch of Reionization
Z Abdurashidova, JE Aguirre, P Alexander, ZS Ali, Y Balfour, R Barkana, AP Beardsley, G Bernardi, TS Billings, JD Bowman, RF Bradley, P Bull, J Burba, S Carey, CL Carilli, C Cheng, DR Deboer, M Dexter, E De Lera Acedo, JS Dillon Show all
Astrophysical Journal | IOP Publishing Ltd | Published : 2022
Abstract
Recently, the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) has produced the experiment's first upper limits on the power spectrum of 21 cm fluctuations at z ∼ 8 and 10. Here, we use several independent theoretical models to infer constraints on the intergalactic medium (IGM) and galaxies during the epoch of reionization from these limits. We find that the IGM must have been heated above the adiabatic-cooling threshold by z ∼ 8, independent of uncertainties about IGM ionization and the radio background. Combining HERA limits with complementary observations constrains the spin temperature of the z ∼ 8 neutral IGM to 27 K 630 K (2.3 K 640 K) at 68% (95%) confidence. They therefore also place a l..
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Funding Acknowledgements
This material is based upon work supported by the National Science Foundation under grant Nos. 1636646 and 1836019 and institutional support from the HERA collaboration partners. This research is funded by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation through grant GBMF5215 to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. HERA is hosted by the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory, which is a facility of the National Research Foundation, an agency of the Department of Science and Innovation. A.M. acknowledges funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 638809-AIDA). The results presented here reflect the authors' views; the ERC is not responsible for their use. J.S.D. gratefully acknowledges the support of the NSF AAPF award #1701536. A.L. acknowledges support from the New Frontiers in Research Fund Exploration grant program, the Canadian Institute for Advanced Research (CIFAR) Azrieli Global Scholars program, a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant and a Discovery Launch Supplement, the Sloan Research Fellowship, and the William Dawson Scholarship at McGill. N.K. acknowledges support from the MIT Pappalardo fellowship. G.B. acknowledges funding from the INAF PRIN-SKA 2017 project 1.05.01.88.04 (FORECaST), support from the Ministero degli Affari Esteri della Cooperazione Internazionale-Direzione Generale per la Promozione del Sistema Paese Progetto di Grande Rilevanza ZA18GR02 and the National Research Foundation of South Africa (grant No. 113121) as part of the ISARP RADIOSKY2020 Joint Research Scheme, from the Royal Society and the Newton Fund under grant NA150184 and from the National Research Foundation of South Africa (grant No. 103424). A.F. is supported by the Royal Society University Research Fellowship. J.B.M. is supported by a Clay Fellowship at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Y.Q. would like to thank Cathryn M. Trott for providing MWA data and acknowledge the support from the High Performance Computing centers of the Scuola Normale Superiore (Italy), the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CHPC South Africa), and the OzSTAR national facility (Australia) for computational resources. Parts of this research were supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for All Sky Astrophysics in 3 Dimensions (ASTRO 3D), through project No. CE170100013. M.G.S. acknowledges support from the South African Radio Astronomy Observatory(SARAO) and the South Africa National Research Foundation (grant No. 84156).