Journal article
Polarized foreground removal at low radio frequencies using rotation measure synthesis: Uncovering the signature of hydrogen reionization
PM Geil, BM Gaensler, JSB Wyithe
Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society | Published : 2011
Abstract
Measurement of redshifted 21-cm emission from neutral hydrogen promises to be the most effective method for studying the reionization history of hydrogen and, indirectly, the first galaxies. These studies will be limited not by raw sensitivity to the signal, but rather, by bright foreground radiation from Galactic and extragalactic radio sources and the Galactic continuum. In addition, leakage due to gain errors and non-ideal feeds conspire to further contaminate low-frequency radio observations. This leakage leads to a portion of the complex linear polarization signal finding its way into Stokes I, and inhibits the detection of the non-polarized cosmological signal from the epoch of reioniz..
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Awarded by Australian Research Council
Funding Acknowledgements
PMG acknowledges the support of an Australian Post-Graduate Award and the hospitality of the University of Sydney, where part of this research was done. JSBW acknowledges the support of the Australian Research Council. BMG acknowledges the support of a Federation Fellowship from the Australian Research Council through grant FF0561298. The Centre for All-Sky Astrophysics is an Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence, funded by grant CE11E0090. The authors thank the referee for providing useful and detailed suggestions for improving the original manuscript.