Matched filtering with interferometric 21 cm experiments

Journal Article · 04 July 2017 · Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/mnras/stx1682 · OSTI ID:1523821

White, Martin  ^[1]; Padmanabhan, Nikhil  ^[2]

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1. Univ. of California, Berkeley, CA (United States). Dept. of Astronomy. Dept. of Physics; Lawrence Berkeley National Lab. (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States)
2. Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States). Dept. of Physics

A new generation of interferometric instruments is emerging, which aims to use intensity mapping of redshifted 21 cm radiation to measure the large-scale structure of the Universe at z ≃ 1-2 over wide areas of the sky. While these instruments typically have limited angular resolution, they cover huge volumes and thus can be used to provide large samples of rare objects. In this paper we study how well such instruments could find spatially extended large-scale structures, such as cosmic voids, using a matched filter formalism. Such a formalism allows us to work in Fourier space, the natural space for interferometers, and to study the impact of finite u - v coverage, noise and foregrounds on our ability to recover voids. We find that in the absence of foregrounds, such instruments would provide enormous catalogs of voids, with high completeness, but that control of foregrounds is key to realizing this goal.

• Research Organization: Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL), Berkeley, CA (United States); Yale Univ., New Haven, CT (United States); University of California, Berkeley, CA (United States)
• Sponsoring Organization: USDOE Office of Science (SC), High Energy Physics (HEP)
• Grant/Contract Number: SC0008080; SC0017860
• OSTI ID: 1523821
• Alternate ID(s): OSTI ID: 1594735
• Journal Information: Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 471, Issue 1; ISSN 0035-8711
• Publisher: Royal Astronomical SocietyCopyright Statement
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English