Astrophysics from the Highly-Redshifted 21 cm Line

Abstract

The cosmic dark ages and the epoch of reionization, during which the first generations of stars and galaxies formed, are among the most compelling frontiers of extragalactic astrophysics and cosmology. Here we describe an exciting new probe of these eras: the 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen, which will allow us to map the neutral intergalactic medium throughout the era of first galaxy formation. In this white paper, we describe how these studies can answer two key questions about galaxy formation: What were the properties of high-redshift galaxies? How did they affect the Universe around them?

8 pages, 5 figures, science white paper submitted to the US Astro2010 Decadal Survey "Galaxies across Cosmic Time" Science Frontier Panel

Cited by in corpus (6)

• HI Epoch of Reionization Arrays
• Bayesian noise wave calibration for 21-cm global experiments
• Measuring the Redshift of Reionization with a Modest Array of Low-Frequency Dipoles
• Stellar mass dependence of the 21-cm signal around the first star and its impact on the global signal
• Hubble/COS Observations of the Quasar HE 2347-4342: Probing the Epoch of He II Patchy Reionization at Redshifts z = 2.4-2.9
• Redshifted 21-cm Signals in the Dark Ages