2010/05/21 by Jonathan R. Pritchard, Abraham Loeb · 1 citation
Physics and Astronomy · #astro-ph.CO
paper · pdf · doi:10.1103/physrevd.82.023006
published as Phys.Rev.D82:023006,2010 · 11 pages, 14 figures, submitted to PRD
arxiv created 2010/05/21 · arxiv updated 2014/11/21
Observations of the frequency dependence of the global brightness temperature of the redshifted 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen may be possible with single dipole experiments. In this paper, we develop a Fisher matrix formalism for calculating the sensitivity of such instruments to the 21 cm signal from reionization and the dark ages. We show that rapid reionization histories with duration delta z< 2 can be constrained, provided that local foregrounds can be well modelled by low order polynomials. It is then shown that observations in the range nu = 50 - 100 MHz can feasibly constrain the Lyman alpha and X-ray emissivity of the first stars forming at z = 15 - 25, provided that systematic temperature residuals can be controlled to less than 1 mK. Finally, we demonstrate the difficulty of detecting the 21 cm signal from the dark ages before star formation.