Galaxy-cluster masses via 21st-century measurements of lensing of 21-cm fluctuations
arXiv:1210.3041 · doi:10.1103/PhysRevD.87.063516
Abstract
We discuss the prospects to measure galaxy-cluster properties via weak lensing of 21-cm fluctuations from the dark ages and the epoch of reionization (EOR). We choose as a figure of merit the smallest cluster mass detectable through such measurements. We construct the minimum-variance quadratic estimator for the cluster mass based on lensing of 21-cm fluctuations at multiple redshifts. We discuss the tradeoff between frequency bandwidth, angular resolution, and number of redshift shells available for a fixed noise level for the radio detectors. Observations of lensing of the 21-cm background from the dark ages will be capable of detecting M>~10^12 Msun/h mass halos, but will require futuristic experiments to overcome the contaminating sources. Next-generation radio measurements of 21-cm fluctuations from the EOR will, however, have the sensitivity to detect galaxy clusters with halo masses M>~10^13 Msun/h, given enough observation time (for the relevant sky patch) and collecting area to maximize their resolution capabilities.
10 pages, 6 figures; typos fixed, clarifications made, figure added; version as published in PRD
References in corpus (11)
- Cosmology at Low Frequencies: The 21 cm Transition and the High-Redshift Universe
- Detection of Gravitational Lensing in the Cosmic Microwave Background
- Correlation of CMB with large-scale structure: II. Weak lensing
- The 21cm angular-power spectrum from the dark ages
- Science with a lunar low-frequency array: from the dark ages of the Universe to nearby exoplanets
- Cosmic 21-cm Delensing of Microwave Background Polarization and the Minimum Detectable Energy Scale of Inflation
- CMB Lensing and the WMAP Cold Spot
- Imaging the Cosmic Matter Distribution using Gravitational Lensing of Pregalactic HI
- Improved estimation of cluster mass profiles from the cosmic microwave background
- Cosmological Information in the Gravitational Lensing of Pregalactic HI
- Universal Weak Lensing Distortion of Cosmological Correlation Functions