THE PRECISION ARRAY FOR PROBING THE EPOCH OF RE-IONIZATION: EIGHT STATION RESULTS

By Aaron Parsons, D. Backer, G. Foster, M. Wright, R. Bradley, N. Gugliucci, C. Parashare, E. Benoit, J. Aguirre, Daniel C. Jacobs and 5 more. 2009

385 citations recorded by the source corpus.

We are developing the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Re-ionization (PAPER) to detect 21 cm emission from the early universe, when the first stars and galaxies were forming. We describe the overall experiment strategy and architecture and summarize two PAPER deployments: a four-antenna array in the low radio frequency interference (RFI) environment of Western Australia and an eight-antenna array at a prototyping site at the NRAO facilities near Green Bank, WV. From these activities we report on system performance, including primary beam model verification, dependence of system gain on ambient temperature, measurements of receiver and overall system temperatures, and characterization of the RFI environment at each deployment site. We present an all-sky map synthesized between 139 MHz and 174 MHz using data from both arrays that reaches down to 80 mJy (4.9 K, for a beam size of 2.15e−5 sr at 156 MHz), with a 10 mJy (620 mK) thermal noise level that indicates what would be achievable with better foreground subtraction. We calculate angular power spectra (Cℓ) in a cold patch and determine them to be dominated by point sources, but with contributions from galactic synchrotron emission at lower radio frequencies and angular wavemodes. Although the sample variance of foregrounds dominates errors in these power spectra, we measure a thermal noise level of 310 mK at ℓ = 100 for a 1.46 MHz band centered at 164.5 MHz. This sensitivity level is approximately 3 orders of magnitude in temperature above the level of the fluctuations in 21 cm emission associated with re-ionization.

Subfields: Astronomy and Astrophysics, Nuclear and High Energy Physics

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/54e3bfc3dd71e58b9dc197156ec825d1e0df06f8

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Citations in the corpus

Upper Limits on the 21 cm Epoch of Reionization Power Spectrum from One Night with LOFAR (2017, methodology): “To date, a number of experiments have been seeking to measure this high-redshift 21-cm emission, using LOFAR (van Haarlem et al. 2013), the GMRT (Paciga et al. 2011), the MWA (Tingay et al. 2013; Bowman et al. 2013), PAPER (Parsons et al. 2010) and the 21CMA (Zheng et al. 2016).”
OPENING THE 21 cm EPOCH OF REIONIZATION WINDOW: MEASUREMENTS OF FOREGROUND ISOLATION WITH PAPER (2013, background): “These steps include a small gain linearization correction to mitigate data quantization effects in the correlator (described in Parsons et al. 2010) and a correction for temperature dependent gain drifts (described in Pober et al. 2012).”
21CMMC: an MCMC analysis tool enabling astrophysical parameter studies of the cosmic 21 cm signal (2015, background): “…21 cm experiments such as the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR; van Haarlem et al. 2013; Yatawatta et al. 2013)1, the Murchison Wide Field Array (MWA; Tingay et al. 2013)2 and the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER; Parsons et al. 2010)3 are just now coming online.”
A simulation-calibrated limit on the H i power spectrum from the GMRT Epoch of Reionization experiment (2013, background): “The Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER) has reported a limit of approximately 5 K with a 310 mK noise level (Parsons et al. 2010).”
Signatures of X-rays in the early Universe (2012, background): “13 http://www.lofar.org/ Field Array (MWA; Tingay et al. 2012)14, and the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Re-ionization (PAPER; Parsons et al. 2010)15 are coming on-line, promising to measure the 21cm power spectrum during 7 ∼< z ∼< 11.”
New Limits on 21cm EoR From PAPER-32 Consistent with an X-Ray Heated IGM at z=7.7 (2013, methodology): “For more details regarding the PAPER telescope, its drift-scan observing mode, and primary beam shape, we refer the reader to Parsons et al. (2010), Jacobs et al. (2011), Pober et al. (2012), and Stefan et al. (2013). ar X iv :1 30 4.”
BRIGHT SOURCE SUBTRACTION REQUIREMENTS FOR REDSHIFTED 21 cm MEASUREMENTS (2010, methodology): “Similar effort has also been made in exploring different techniques to remove the foregrounds from the EoR data-set by Morales et al. (2006a,b); Bowman et al. (2009); Liu et al. (2009); Parsons et al. (2010); Gleser et al. (2008); Harker et al. (2009b,a).”
Neutrino Mass Ordering from Oscillations and Beyond: 2018 Status and Future Prospects (2018, background): “Cosmological measurements of the redshifted 21 cm hydrogen line provide a unique test of the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) and the “dark ages,” the period before the first stars formed.”
WHAT NEXT-GENERATION 21 cm POWER SPECTRUM MEASUREMENTS CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION (2013, methodology): “Moore et al. (2013) demonstrate how combining redundant visibilities without image plane correction (as done by PAPER) can corrupt the EoR signal outside the wedge, due to the effects of instrumental polarization leakage.”
GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey - I. A low-frequency extragalactic catalogue (2016, background): “These instruments include the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR; van Haarlem et al. 2013), the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER; Parsons et al. 2010), the Long Wavelength Array (LWA; Ellingson et al. 2013), and the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA; Lonsdale et al. 2009; Tingay et…”
INTENSITY MAPPING WITH CARBON MONOXIDE EMISSION LINES AND THE REDSHIFTED 21 cm LINE (2011, background): “Motivated by the promise of this technique, a first generation of experiments aimed at detecting the 21 cm signal from the EoR is currently underway, including the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) (Lonsdale et al. 2009); the Low Frequency Array (LOFAR) (Harker et al. 2010); Precision Array for Probin”
FIRST SEASON MWA EOR POWER SPECTRUM RESULTS AT REDSHIFT 7 (2016, background): “…Telescope, Paciga et al. 2013), LOFAR (LOw Frequency Array29, van Haarlem et al. 2013; Yatawatta et al. 2013), PAPER (Donald C. Backer Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization30, Parsons et al. 2010), and the MWA (Murchison Widefield Array31, Tingay et al. 2013; Bowman et al. 2013).”