skip to main content
OSTI.GOV title logo U.S. Department of Energy
Office of Scientific and Technical Information

Title: Emulating Simulations of Cosmic Dawn for 21 cm Power Spectrum Constraints on Cosmology, Reionization, and X-Ray Heating

Journal Article · · Astrophysical Journal
; ;  [1]; ;  [2]
  1. Department of Astronomy and Radio Astronomy Laboratory, University of California Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720 (United States)
  2. Scuola Normale Superiore, Piazza dei Cavalieri 7, I-56126 Pisa (Italy)

Current and upcoming radio interferometric experiments are aiming to make a statistical characterization of the high-redshift 21 cm fluctuation signal spanning the hydrogen reionization and X-ray heating epochs of the universe. However, connecting 21 cm statistics to the underlying physical parameters is complicated by the theoretical challenge of modeling the relevant physics at computational speeds quick enough to enable exploration of the high-dimensional and weakly constrained parameter space. In this work, we use machine learning algorithms to build a fast emulator that can accurately mimic an expensive simulation of the 21 cm signal across a wide parameter space. We embed our emulator within a Markov Chain Monte Carlo framework in order to perform Bayesian parameter constraints over a large number of model parameters, including those that govern the Epoch of Reionization, the Epoch of X-ray Heating, and cosmology. As a worked example, we use our emulator to present an updated parameter constraint forecast for the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array experiment, showing that its characterization of a fiducial 21 cm power spectrum will considerably narrow the allowed parameter space of reionization and heating parameters, and could help strengthen Planck's constraints on σ{sub 8}. We provide both our generalized emulator code and its implementation specifically for 21 cm parameter constraints as publicly available software.

OSTI ID:
22875711
Journal Information:
Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 848, Issue 1; Other Information: Country of input: International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA); ISSN 0004-637X
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

References (167)

A Bayesian calibration approach to the thermal problem journal May 2008
Astropy: A community Python package for astronomy journal September 2013
Planck 2015 results : XXIII. The thermal Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect-cosmic infrared background correlation journal September 2016
The simulated 21 cm signal during the epoch of reionization: full modeling of the Ly- α pumping journal December 2008
On the excitation mechanism of the 21-cm (radio-frequency) interstellar hydrogen emission line. journal January 1952
Measures of location and scale for velocities in clusters of galaxies - A robust approach journal July 1990
Destruction of Molecular Hydrogen during Cosmological Reionization journal February 1997
Radio Signatures of H i at High Redshift: Mapping the End of the “Dark Ages” journal January 2000
The Radiative Feedback of the First Cosmological Objects journal May 2000
Efficient Computation of Cosmic Microwave Background Anisotropies in Closed Friedmann‐Robertson‐Walker Models journal August 2000
Effective Screening Due to Minihalos during the Epoch of Reionization journal October 2002
Unusually Large Fluctuations in the Statistics of Galaxy Formation at High Redshift journal July 2004
The Growth of H ii Regions During Reionization journal September 2004
Detecting the Earliest Galaxies through Two New Sources of 21 Centimeter Fluctuations journal June 2005
Cosmological Parameter Estimation Using 21 cm Radiation from the Epoch of Reionization journal December 2006
Cosmic Calibration journal July 2006
Pico: Parameters for the Impatient Cosmologist journal January 2007
The Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Broadband and Broad-Beam Array: Design Overview and Sensitivity Forecasts journal January 2013
Intelligent Design: on the Emulation of Cosmological Simulations journal January 2011
Imaging the Epoch of Reionization: Limitations from Foreground Confusion and Imaging Algorithms journal January 2012
FOUR FUNDAMENTAL FOREGROUND POWER SPECTRUM SHAPES FOR 21 cm COSMOLOGY OBSERVATIONS journal June 2012
A SENSITIVITY AND ARRAY-CONFIGURATION STUDY FOR MEASURING THE POWER SPECTRUM OF 21 cm EMISSION FROM REIONIZATION journal June 2012
Cosmic Microwave Background Constraints on the Duration and Timing of Reionization from the South pole Telescope journal August 2012
A PER-BASELINE, DELAY-SPECTRUM TECHNIQUE FOR ACCESSING THE 21 cm COSMIC REIONIZATION SIGNATURE journal August 2012
THE IMPACT OF POINT-SOURCE SUBTRACTION RESIDUALS ON 21 cm EPOCH OF REIONIZATION ESTIMATION journal September 2012
Reionization on Large Scales. i. a Parametric Model Constructed from Radiation-Hydrodynamic Simulations journal October 2013
WHAT NEXT-GENERATION 21 cm POWER SPECTRUM MEASUREMENTS CAN TEACH US ABOUT THE EPOCH OF REIONIZATION journal January 2014
NEW LIMITS ON 21 cm EPOCH OF REIONIZATION FROM PAPER-32 CONSISTENT WITH AN X-RAY HEATED INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM AT z = 7.7 journal May 2014
ERASING THE VARIABLE: EMPIRICAL FOREGROUND DISCOVERY FOR GLOBAL 21 cm SPECTRUM EXPERIMENTS journal September 2014
UV LUMINOSITY FUNCTIONS AT REDSHIFTS z ∼ 4 TO z ∼ 10: 10,000 GALAXIES FROM HST LEGACY FIELDS journal April 2015
FOREGROUNDS IN WIDE-FIELD REDSHIFTED 21 cm POWER SPECTRA journal April 2015
PAPER-64 CONSTRAINTS ON REIONIZATION: THE 21 cm POWER SPECTRUM AT z = 8.4 journal August 2015
The Evolution of the Galaxy Rest-Frame Ultraviolet Luminosity Function over the First two Billion Years journal September 2015
Constructing a Flexible Likelihood Function for Spectroscopic Inference journal October 2015
Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) journal March 2017
OPENING THE 21 cm EPOCH OF REIONIZATION WINDOW: MEASUREMENTS OF FOREGROUND ISOLATION WITH PAPER journal April 2013
CONFIRMATION OF WIDE-FIELD SIGNATURES IN REDSHIFTED 21 cm POWER SPECTRA journal July 2015
Spectral appearance of non-uniform gas at high z journal October 1979
The scale of the problem: recovering images of reionization with Generalized Morphological Component Analysis journal November 2012
Simulating cosmic reionization: how large a volume is large enough? journal January 2014
A simulation-calibrated limit on the H i power spectrum from the GMRT Epoch of Reionization experiment journal May 2013
Reionization and beyond: detecting the peaks of the cosmological 21 cm signal journal February 2014
The rich complexity of 21-cm fluctuations produced by the first stars journal September 2014
Model-independent evidence in favour of an end to reionization by z ≈ 6 journal December 2014
21 cm signal from cosmic dawn: imprints of spin temperature fluctuations and peculiar velocities journal January 2015
The effect of foreground subtraction on cosmological measurements from intensity mapping journal May 2014
The First Billion Years project: the escape fraction of ionizing photons in the epoch of reionization journal June 2015
Lunar occultation of the diffuse radio sky: LOFAR measurements between 35 and 80 MHz journal May 2015
Constraining cosmology and ionization history with combined 21 cm power spectrum and global signal measurements journal February 2016
The effect of foreground mitigation strategy on EoR window recovery journal March 2016
Models of the cosmological 21 cm signal from the epoch of reionization calibrated with Ly α and CMB data journal August 2016
The global history of reionization journal November 2016
Constraints on the star formation efficiency of galaxies during the epoch of reionization journal April 2016
The impact of modelling errors on interferometer calibration for 21 cm power spectra journal May 2017
Charting the parameter space of the global 21-cm signal journal August 2017
Simulating the impact of X-ray heating during the cosmic dawn journal March 2017
Analysing the 21 cm signal from the epoch of reionization with artificial neural networks journal March 2017
High-mass X-ray binaries and the cosmic 21-cm signal: impact of host galaxy absorption journal April 2017
Complete history of the observable 21 cm signal from the first stars during the pre-reionization era journal October 2013
Cosmological parameters from CMB and other data: A Monte Carlo approach journal November 2002
Cosmic calibration: Constraints from the matter power spectrum and the cosmic microwave background journal October 2007
Overcoming real-world obstacles in 21 cm power spectrum estimation: A method demonstration and results from early Murchison Widefield Array data journal January 2014
Epoch of reionization window. II. Statistical methods for foreground wedge reduction journal July 2014
Emulating the CFHTLenS weak lensing data: Cosmological constraints from moments and Minkowski functionals journal May 2015
Empirical covariance modeling for 21 cm power spectrum estimation: A method demonstration and new limits from early Murchison Widefield Array 128-tile data journal June 2015
Eliminating the optical depth nuisance from the CMB with 21 cm cosmology journal February 2016
Excitation of the Hydrogen 21-CM Line journal January 1958
The global 21-centimeter background from high redshifts journal September 2006
Simulating cosmic reionization at large scales - II. The 21-cm emission features and statistical signals journal October 2006
21-cm fluctuations from inhomogeneous X-ray heating before reionization journal March 2007
The impact of a percolating IGM on redshifted 21-cm observations of quasar H ii regions journal May 2008
Inside-out or outside-in: the topology of reionization in the photon-starved regime suggested by Lyα forest data journal April 2009
Modification of the 21-cm power spectrum by X-rays during the epoch of reionization journal June 2009
Fast large volume simulations of the 21-cm signal from the reionization and pre-reionization epochs: Fast large volume simulations of 21-cm signal journal June 2010
21cmfast: a fast, seminumerical simulation of the high-redshift 21-cm signal: 21cmfast journal November 2010
X-ray emission from star-forming galaxies - I. High-mass X-ray binaries: HMXBs in star-forming galaxies journal November 2011
The kinetic Sunyaev-Zel’dovich signal from inhomogeneous reionization: a parameter space study: kSZ signal from patchy reionization journal March 2012
A new layout optimization technique for interferometric arrays, applied to the Murchison Widefield Array: Interferometric array optimization technique journal August 2012
Concordance models of reionization: implications for faint galaxies and escape fraction evolution: Concordance models of reionization journal April 2012
Foreground removal using fastica : a showcase of LOFAR-EoR journal May 2012
Reionization and Cosmology with 21-cm Fluctuations journal August 2010
Computer Simulations of Cosmic Reionization journal February 2011
Calibrating a large computer experiment simulating radiative shock hydrodynamics journal September 2015
Ensemble samplers with affine invariance journal January 2010
THE IMPORTANCE OF WIDE-FIELD FOREGROUND REMOVAL FOR 21 cm COSMOLOGY: A DEMONSTRATION WITH EARLY MWA EPOCH OF REIONIZATION OBSERVATIONS journal February 2016
COSMIC REIONIZATION ON COMPUTERS. MEAN AND FLUCTUATING REDSHIFTED 21 cm SIGNAL journal June 2016
First Season mwa eor Power Spectrum Results at Redshift 7 journal December 2016
Galaxy Properties and uv Escape Fractions During the Epoch of Reionization: Results from the Renaissance Simulations journal December 2016
Directly Observing the Galaxies Likely Responsible for Reionization journal January 2017
Inflationary potential from 21 cm tomography and Planck journal March 2009
The observable signature of late heating of the Universe during cosmic reionization journal February 2014
Planck 2015 results : XIII. Cosmological parameters journal September 2016
21 Centimeter Tomography of the Intergalactic Medium at High Redshift journal February 1997
The Spin Temperature and 21 cm Brightness of the Intergalactic Medium in the Pre-Reionization era journal January 2006
Constraining the Evolution of the Ionizing Background and the Epoch of Reionization with z  ~ 6 Quasars. II. A Sample of 19 Quasars journal June 2006
Simulations and Analytic Calculations of Bubble Growth during Hydrogen Reionization journal January 2007
Efficient Simulations of Early Structure Formation and Reionization journal November 2007
emcee : The MCMC Hammer
  • Foreman-Mackey, Daniel; Hogg, David W.; Lang, Dustin
  • Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 125, Issue 925 https://doi.org/10.1086/670067
journal March 2013
The Coyote Universe. ii. Cosmological Models and Precision Emulation of the Nonlinear Matter Power Spectrum journal October 2009
BRIGHT SOURCE SUBTRACTION REQUIREMENTS FOR REDSHIFTED 21 cm MEASUREMENTS journal November 2010
A Study of Fundamental Limitations to Statistical Detection of Redshifted h i from the Epoch of Reionization journal September 2013
Cosmic Reionization on Computers. i. Design and Calibration of Simulations journal September 2014
PAPER-64 CONSTRAINTS ON REIONIZATION. II. THE TEMPERATURE OF THE z = 8.4 INTERGALACTIC MEDIUM journal August 2015
21 cm cosmology in the 21st century journal July 2012
Learn-as-you-go acceleration of cosmological parameter estimates journal September 2015
COSMIC REIONIZATION AND EARLY STAR-FORMING GALAXIES: A JOINT ANALYSIS OF NEW CONSTRAINTS FROM PLANCK AND THE HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE journal April 2015
Signatures of X-rays in the early Universe journal March 2013
Evidence of patchy hydrogen reionization from an extreme Lyα trough below redshift six journal January 2015
Inhomogeneous recombinations during cosmic reionization journal March 2014
Polarization leakage in epoch of reionization windows – I. Low Frequency Array observations of the 3C196 field journal June 2015
21CMMC: an MCMC analysis tool enabling astrophysical parameter studies of the cosmic 21 cm signal journal April 2015
Systematic biases in low-frequency radio interferometric data due to calibration: the LOFAR-EoR case journal September 2016
Background reionization history from omniscopes journal December 2012
Epoch of reionization window. I. Mathematical formalism journal July 2014
Characteristic scales during reionization journal January 2006
Fast large-scale reionization simulations journal February 2009
Comparison of reionization models: radiative transfer simulations and approximate, seminumeric models: Comparison of reionization models journal April 2011
Charting the parameter space of the global 21-cm signal text January 2017
QUANTIFYING DISCORDANCE IN THE 2015 PLANCK CMB SPECTRUM journal February 2016
CONSTRAINING POLARIZED FOREGROUNDS FOR EoR EXPERIMENTS. I. 2D POWER SPECTRA FROM THE PAPER-32 IMAGING ARRAY journal May 2016
REDUNDANT ARRAY CONFIGURATIONS FOR 21 cm COSMOLOGY journal July 2016
MULTIREDSHIFT LIMITS ON THE 21 cm POWER SPECTRUM FROM PAPER journal March 2015
The X-ray spectra of the first galaxies: 21 cm signatures journal July 2014
Fast Prediction and Evaluation of Gravitational Waveforms Using Surrogate Models journal July 2014
Planck 2015 results : XVI. Isotropy and statistics of the CMB journal September 2016
Constraints on the temperature of the intergalactic medium at z = 8.4 with 21-cm observations journal December 2015
First limits on the 21 cm power spectrum during the Epoch of X-ray heating journal May 2016
The global 21-cm signal in the context of the high- z galaxy luminosity function journal September 2016
Constraining high-redshift X-ray sources with next generation 21-cm power spectrum measurements journal February 2016
How accurately can 21 cm tomography constrain cosmology? journal July 2008
Fast Prediction and Evaluation of Gravitational Waveforms Using Surrogate Models text January 2014
Upper Limits on the 21 cm Epoch of Reionization Power Spectrum from One Night with LOFAR journal March 2017
Planck 2015 results : XXVI. The Second journal September 2016
Calibration requirements for detecting the 21 cm epoch of reionization power spectrum and implications for the SKA journal June 2016
The simulated 21 cm signal during the epoch of reionization : full modeling of the Ly-alpha pumping text January 2008
Fast Large-Scale Reionization Simulations text January 2008
Reionization and Cosmology with 21 cm Fluctuations text January 2009
Bright Source Subtraction Requirements For Redshifted 21 cm Measurements text January 2010
A Sensitivity and Array-Configuration Study for Measuring the Power Spectrum of 21cm Emission from Reionization text January 2011
Background reionization history from omniscopes text January 2012
Overcoming real-world obstacles in 21 cm power spectrum estimation: A method demonstration and results from early Murchison Widefield Array data text January 2013
A study of fundamental limitations to statistical detection of redshifted HI from the epoch of reionization text January 2013
Reionization and Beyond: detecting the peaks of the cosmological 21cm signal text January 2013
What Next-Generation 21 cm Power Spectrum Measurements Can Teach Us About the Epoch of Reionization text January 2013
The effect of foreground subtraction on cosmological measurements from Intensity Mapping text January 2013
Lunar occultation of the diffuse radio sky: LOFAR measurements between 35 and 80 MHz text January 2014
Calibrating a large computer experiment simulating radiative shock hydrodynamics text January 2014
Model-independent evidence in favor of an end to reionization by z~6 text January 2014
Planck 2015 results. XIII. Cosmological parameters text January 2015
PAPER-64 Constraints on Reionization: The 21cm Power Spectrum at z=8.4 text January 2015
Confirmation of Wide-Field Signatures in Redshifted 21 cm Power Spectra text January 2015
Constraints on the temperature of the intergalactic medium at z=8.4 with 21-cm observations text January 2015
Constraining cosmology and ionization history with combined 21 cm power spectrum and global signal measurements text January 2015
Quantifying discordance in the 2015 Planck CMB spectrum text January 2015
Constraints on the Star Formation Efficiency of Galaxies During the Epoch of Reionization text January 2015
Constraining Polarized Foregrounds for EoR Experiments I: 2D Power Spectra from the PAPER-32 Imaging Array text January 2016
Calibration Requirements for Detecting the 21 cm Epoch of Reionization Power Spectrum and Implications for the SKA text January 2016
First Limits on the 21 cm Power Spectrum during the Epoch of X-ray heating text January 2016
Simulating the Impact of X-ray Heating during the Cosmic Dawn text January 2016
First Season MWA EoR Power Spectrum Results at Redshift 7 text January 2016
Charting the Parameter Space of the Global 21-cm Signal text January 2016
The Impact of Modeling Errors on Interferometer Calibration for 21 cm Power Spectra text January 2016
Analysing the 21cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization with artificial neural networks text January 2017
Cosmological parameters from CMB and other data: a Monte-Carlo approach text January 2002
Cosmological Parameter Estimation Using 21 cm Radiation from the Epoch of Reionization text January 2005
Cosmic Calibration: Constraints from the Matter Power Spectrum and the Cosmic Microwave Background text January 2007
Radio Signatures of HI at High Redshift: Mapping the End of the ``Dark Ages'' text January 1999

Cited By (18)

Neural Network Emulation of Reionization Simulations journal October 2017
Evaluating machine learning techniques for predicting power spectra from reionization simulations journal November 2018
Massive optimal data compression and density estimation for scalable, likelihood-free inference in cosmology journal March 2018
Improved supervised learning methods for EoR parameters reconstruction journal September 2019
Robust velocity-induced acoustic oscillations at cosmic dawn journal September 2019
Global 21 cm Signal Extraction from Foreground and Instrumental Effects. I. Pattern Recognition Framework for Separation Using Training Sets journal February 2018
Results from EDGES High-band. II. Constraints on Parameters of Early Galaxies journal August 2018
Mitigating Internal Instrument Coupling for 21 cm Cosmology. I. Temporal and Spectral Modeling in Simulations journal October 2019
Mitigating Internal Instrument Coupling for 21 cm Cosmology. II. A Method Demonstration with the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array journal January 2020
Fundamental physics with the Square Kilometre Array journal January 2020
Evaluating the QSO contribution to the 21-cm signal from the Cosmic Dawn journal May 2019
Constraining the primordial black hole abundance with 21-cm cosmology journal August 2019
Inferring the astrophysics of reionization and cosmic dawn from galaxy luminosity functions and the 21-cm signal journal January 2019
How proper are Bayesian models in the astronomical literature? journal August 2018
Inferring the astrophysics of reionization and cosmic dawn from galaxy luminosity functions and the 21-cm signal text January 2018
Fundamental Physics with the Square Kilometre Array text January 2018
Robust Velocity-induced Acoustic Oscillations at Cosmic Dawn text January 2019
Mitigating Internal Instrument Coupling for 21 cm Cosmology I: Temporal and Spectral Modeling in Simulations text January 2019