Author: "Cheng, Carina" / Publication Type: Electronic Resources - Searchworks@Jio Institute Digital Library Search Results

Your search keyword '"Cheng, Carina"' showing total 84 results

Start Over Author "Cheng, Carina" Publication Type Electronic Resources

84 results on '"Cheng, Carina"'

1. A demonstration of the effect of fringe-rate filtering in the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array delay power spectrum pipeline

Author: Garsden, Hugh, Bull, Philip, Wilensky, Mike, Abdurashidova, Zuhra, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Berkhout, Lindsay M., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Chen, Kai-Feng, Cheng, Carina, Choudhuri, Samir, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Dynes, Scott, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Gehlot, Bharat Kumar, Ghosh, Abhik, Glendenning, Brian, Gorce, Adelie, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Huang, Tian, Jacobs, Daniel C., Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kim, Honggeun, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David H. E., Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Qin, Yuxiang, Rath, Eleanor, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Riley, Daniel, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Storer, Dara, Swarts, Hilton, Tan, Jianrong, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Xu, Zhilei, Zheng, Haoxuan, Garsden, Hugh, Bull, Philip, Wilensky, Mike, Abdurashidova, Zuhra, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Berkhout, Lindsay M., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Chen, Kai-Feng, Cheng, Carina, Choudhuri, Samir, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Dynes, Scott, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Gehlot, Bharat Kumar, Ghosh, Abhik, Glendenning, Brian, Gorce, Adelie, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Huang, Tian, Jacobs, Daniel C., Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kim, Honggeun, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David H. E., Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Qin, Yuxiang, Rath, Eleanor, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Riley, Daniel, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Storer, Dara, Swarts, Hilton, Tan, Jianrong, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Xu, Zhilei, and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Radio interferometers targeting the 21cm brightness temperature fluctuations at high redshift are subject to systematic effects that operate over a range of different timescales. These can be isolated by designing appropriate Fourier filters that operate in fringe-rate (FR) space, the Fourier pair of local sidereal time (LST). Applications of FR filtering include separating effects that are correlated with the rotating sky vs. those relative to the ground, down-weighting emission in the primary beam sidelobes, and suppressing noise. FR filtering causes the noise contributions to the visibility data to become correlated in time however, making interpretation of subsequent averaging and error estimation steps more subtle. In this paper, we describe fringe rate filters that are implemented using discrete prolate spheroidal sequences, and designed for two different purposes -- beam sidelobe/horizon suppression (the `mainlobe' filter), and ground-locked systematics removal (the `notch' filter). We apply these to simulated data, and study how their properties affect visibilities and power spectra generated from the simulations. Included is an introduction to fringe-rate filtering and a demonstration of fringe-rate filters applied to simple situations to aid understanding., Comment: 21 pages, 18 figures, submitted to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society
Published: 2024

2. Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) Phase II Deployment and Commissioning

Author: Berkhout, Lindsay M., Jacobs, Daniel C., Abdurashidova, Zuhra, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Chen, Kai-Feng, Cheng, Carina, Choudhuri, Samir, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Dynes, Scott, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Garsden, Hugh, Gehlot, Bharat Kumar, Ghosh, Abhik, Glendenning, Brian, Gorce, Adelie, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Huang, Tian, Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kim, Honggeun, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Qin, Yuxiang, Rath, Eleanor, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Riley, Daniel, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Storer, Dara, Swarts, Hilton, Tan, Jianrong, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Xu, Zhilei, Berkhout, Lindsay M., Jacobs, Daniel C., Abdurashidova, Zuhra, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Chen, Kai-Feng, Cheng, Carina, Choudhuri, Samir, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Dynes, Scott, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Garsden, Hugh, Gehlot, Bharat Kumar, Ghosh, Abhik, Glendenning, Brian, Gorce, Adelie, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Huang, Tian, Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kim, Honggeun, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Qin, Yuxiang, Rath, Eleanor, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Riley, Daniel, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Storer, Dara, Swarts, Hilton, Tan, Jianrong, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, and Xu, Zhilei
Abstract: This paper presents the design and deployment of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) phase II system. HERA is designed as a staged experiment targeting 21 cm emission measurements of the Epoch of Reionization. First results from the phase I array are published as of early 2022, and deployment of the phase II system is nearing completion. We describe the design of the phase II system and discuss progress on commissioning and future upgrades. As HERA is a designated Square Kilometer Array (SKA) pathfinder instrument, we also show a number of "case studies" that investigate systematics seen while commissioning the phase II system, which may be of use in the design and operation of future arrays. Common pathologies are likely to manifest in similar ways across instruments, and many of these sources of contamination can be mitigated once the source is identified.
Published: 2024

3. Water flows in Figueres: review the history and enhance flooding resilience of the city of Figueres

Author: Batlle Durany, Enric, Spanou, Ioanna, Gómez de Zamora Martínez, Daniel, Zahonero Xifre, Anna, Cheng, Carina, Batlle Durany, Enric, Spanou, Ioanna, Gómez de Zamora Martínez, Daniel, Zahonero Xifre, Anna, and Cheng, Carina
Abstract: Water plays a crucial role in shaping the environment we inhabit. This project aims to reveal the history and geography of the existing city of Figueres, and to propose an appropriate approach responding to them, as well as to mitigating the severe effect of climate change to the city and enhance the living environment for current habitants.
Published: 2023

4. Search for the Epoch of Reionisation with HERA: Upper Limits on the Closure Phase Delay Power Spectrum

Author: Keller, Pascal M., Nikolic, Bojan, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Carilli, Chris L., Bernardi, Gianni, Charles, Ntsikelelo, Bester, Landman, Smirnov, Oleg M., Kern, Nicholas S., Dillon, Joshua S., Hazelton, Bryna J., Morales, Miguel F., Jacobs, Daniel C., Parsons, Aaron R., Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nuwegeld, Hans, Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Keller, Pascal M., Nikolic, Bojan, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Carilli, Chris L., Bernardi, Gianni, Charles, Ntsikelelo, Bester, Landman, Smirnov, Oleg M., Kern, Nicholas S., Dillon, Joshua S., Hazelton, Bryna J., Morales, Miguel F., Jacobs, Daniel C., Parsons, Aaron R., Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nuwegeld, Hans, Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Radio interferometers aiming to measure the power spectrum of the redshifted 21 cm line during the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR) need to achieve an unprecedented dynamic range to separate the weak signal from overwhelming foreground emissions. Calibration inaccuracies can compromise the sensitivity of these measurements to the effect that a detection of the EoR is precluded. An alternative to standard analysis techniques makes use of the closure phase, which allows one to bypass antenna-based direction-independent calibration. Similarly to standard approaches, we use a delay spectrum technique to search for the EoR signal. Using 94 nights of data observed with Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), we place approximate constraints on the 21 cm power spectrum at $z=7.7$. We find at 95% confidence that the 21 cm EoR brightness temperature is $\le$(372)$^2$ "pseudo" mK$^2$ at 1.14 "pseudo" $h$ Mpc$^{-1}$, where the "pseudo" emphasises that these limits are to be interpreted as approximations to the actual distance scales and brightness temperatures. Using a fiducial EoR model, we demonstrate the feasibility of detecting the EoR with the full array. Compared to standard methods, the closure phase processing is relatively simple, thereby providing an important independent check on results derived using visibility intensities, or related., Comment: 16 pages, 14 figures, accepted for publication by MNRAS
Published: 2023
Full Text: View/download PDF

5. matvis: A matrix-based visibility simulator for fast forward modelling of many-element 21 cm arrays

Author: Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Murray, Steven G., Garsden, Hugh, Bull, Philip, Cain, Christopher, Parsons, Aaron R., Sipple, Jackson, Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Berkhout, Lindsay M., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Chen, Kai-Feng, Cheng, Carina, Choudhuri, Samir, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Dynes, Scott, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Gehlot, Bharat Kumar, Ghosh, Abhik, Glendenning, Brian, Gorce, Adelie, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Huang, Tian, Jacobs, Daniel C., Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kim, Honggeun, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David H. E., Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Nuwegeld, Hans, Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Qin, Yuxiang, Rath, Eleanor, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Riley, Daniel, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Storer, Dara, Swarts, Hilton, Tan, Jianrong, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Xu, Zhilei, Zheng, Haoxuan, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Murray, Steven G., Garsden, Hugh, Bull, Philip, Cain, Christopher, Parsons, Aaron R., Sipple, Jackson, Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Berkhout, Lindsay M., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Chen, Kai-Feng, Cheng, Carina, Choudhuri, Samir, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Dynes, Scott, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Gehlot, Bharat Kumar, Ghosh, Abhik, Glendenning, Brian, Gorce, Adelie, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Huang, Tian, Jacobs, Daniel C., Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kim, Honggeun, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David H. E., Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Nuwegeld, Hans, Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Qin, Yuxiang, Rath, Eleanor, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Riley, Daniel, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Storer, Dara, Swarts, Hilton, Tan, Jianrong, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Xu, Zhilei, and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Detection of the faint 21 cm line emission from the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionisation will require not only exquisite control over instrumental calibration and systematics to achieve the necessary dynamic range of observations but also validation of analysis techniques to demonstrate their statistical properties and signal loss characteristics. A key ingredient in achieving this is the ability to perform high-fidelity simulations of the kinds of data that are produced by the large, many-element, radio interferometric arrays that have been purpose-built for these studies. The large scale of these arrays presents a computational challenge, as one must simulate a detailed sky and instrumental model across many hundreds of frequency channels, thousands of time samples, and tens of thousands of baselines for arrays with hundreds of antennas. In this paper, we present a fast matrix-based method for simulating radio interferometric measurements (visibilities) at the necessary scale. We achieve this through judicious use of primary beam interpolation, fast approximations for coordinate transforms, and a vectorised outer product to expand per-antenna quantities to per-baseline visibilities, coupled with standard parallelisation techniques. We validate the results of this method, implemented in the publicly-available matvis code, against a high-precision reference simulator, and explore its computational scaling on a variety of problems., Comment: 25 pages, 20 figures, submitted to RAS Techniques and Instruments, matvis is publicly available at https://github.com/HERA-Team/matvis
Published: 2023

6. Bayesian estimation of cross-coupling and reflection systematics in 21cm array visibility data

Author: Murphy, Geoff G., Bull, Philip, Santos, Mario G., Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee, Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Cain, Christopher, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Sipple, Jackson, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Murphy, Geoff G., Bull, Philip, Santos, Mario G., Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee, Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Cain, Christopher, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Sipple, Jackson, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Observations with radio arrays that target the 21-cm signal originating from the early Universe suffer from a variety of systematic effects. An important class of these are reflections and spurious couplings between antennas. We apply a Hamiltonian Monte Carlo sampler to the modelling and mitigation of these systematics in simulated Hydrogen Epoch of Reionisation Array (HERA) data. This method allows us to form statistical uncertainty estimates for both our models and the recovered visibilities, which is an important ingredient in establishing robust upper limits on the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR) power spectrum. In cases where the noise is large compared to the EoR signal, this approach can constrain the systematics well enough to mitigate them down to the noise level for both systematics studied. Where the noise is smaller than the EoR, our modelling can mitigate the majority of the reflections with there being only a minor level of residual systematics, while cross-coupling sees essentially complete mitigation. Our approach performs similarly to existing filtering/fitting techniques used in the HERA pipeline, but with the added benefit of rigorously propagating uncertainties. In all cases it does not significantly attenuate the underlying signal., Comment: 19 pages, 14 figures, submitted to MNRAS
Published: 2023

7. Direct Optimal Mapping Image Power Spectrum and its Window Functions

Author: Xu, Zhilei, Kim, Honggeun, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Chen, Kai-Feng, Kern, Nicholas S., Rath, Elizabeth, Byrne, Ruby, Gorce, Adélie, Martinot, Zachary E., Dillon, Joshua S., Hazelton, Bryna J., Liu, Adrian, Morales, Miguel F., Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Xu, Zhilei, Kim, Honggeun, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Chen, Kai-Feng, Kern, Nicholas S., Rath, Elizabeth, Byrne, Ruby, Gorce, Adélie, Martinot, Zachary E., Dillon, Joshua S., Hazelton, Bryna J., Liu, Adrian, Morales, Miguel F., Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: The key to detecting neutral hydrogen during the epoch of reionization (EoR) is to separate the cosmological signal from the dominating foreground radiation. We developed direct optimal mapping (Xu et al. 2022) to map interferometric visibilities; it contains only linear operations, with full knowledge of point spread functions from visibilities to images. Here we present an FFT-based image power spectrum and its window functions based on direct optimal mapping. We use noiseless simulation, based on the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) Phase I configuration, to study the image power spectrum properties. The window functions show $<10^{-11}$ power leakage from the foreground-dominated region into the EoR window; the 2D and 1D power spectra also verify the separation between the foregrounds and the EoR. Furthermore, we simulated visibilities from a $uv$-complete array and calculated its image power spectrum. The result shows that the foreground--EoR leakage is further suppressed below $10^{-12}$, dominated by the tapering function sidelobes; the 2D power spectrum does not show signs of the horizon wedge. The $uv$-complete result provides a reference case for future 21cm cosmology array designs., Comment: Submitted to ApJ
Published: 2023

8. Direct Optimal Mapping for 21cm Cosmology: A Demonstration with the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array

Author: Xu, Zhilei, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Chen, Kai-Feng, Kim, Hongguen, Dillon, Joshua S., Kern, Nicholas S., Morales, Miguel F., Hazelton, Bryna J., Byrne, Ruby, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-zhe, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Van Van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Xu, Zhilei, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Chen, Kai-Feng, Kim, Hongguen, Dillon, Joshua S., Kern, Nicholas S., Morales, Miguel F., Hazelton, Bryna J., Byrne, Ruby, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-zhe, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Van Van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Motivated by the desire for wide-field images with well-defined statistical properties for 21cm cosmology, we implement an optimal mapping pipeline that computes a maximum likelihood estimator for the sky using the interferometric measurement equation. We demonstrate this direct optimal mapping with data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization (HERA) Phase I observations. After validating the pipeline with simulated data, we develop a maximum likelihood figure-of-merit for comparing four sky models at 166MHz with a bandwidth of 100kHz. The HERA data agree with the GLEAM catalogs to $<$10%. After subtracting the GLEAM point sources, the HERA data discriminate between the different continuum sky models, providing most support for the model from Byrne et al. 2021. We report the computation cost for mapping the HERA Phase I data and project the computation for the HERA 320-antenna data, both are feasible with a modern server. The algorithm is broadly applicable to other interferometers, and is valid for wide-field and non-coplanar arrays., Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, submitted to ApJ
Published: 2022

9. Characterization Of Inpaint Residuals In Interferometric Measurements of the Epoch Of Reionization

Author: Pagano, Michael, Liu, Jing, Liu, Adrian, Kern, Nicholas S., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Bull, Philip, Pascua, Robert, Ravanbakhsh, Siamak, Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Pagano, Michael, Liu, Jing, Liu, Adrian, Kern, Nicholas S., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Bull, Philip, Pascua, Robert, Ravanbakhsh, Siamak, Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is one of the systematic challenges preventing 21cm interferometric instruments from detecting the Epoch of Reionization. To mitigate the effects of RFI on data analysis pipelines, numerous inpaint techniques have been developed to restore RFI corrupted data. We examine the qualitative and quantitative errors introduced into the visibilities and power spectrum due to inpainting. We perform our analysis on simulated data as well as real data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) Phase 1 upper limits. We also introduce a convolutional neural network that capable of inpainting RFI corrupted data in interferometric instruments. We train our network on simulated data and show that our network is capable at inpainting real data without requiring to be retrained. We find that techniques that incorporate high wavenumbers in delay space in their modeling are best suited for inpainting over narrowband RFI. We also show that with our fiducial parameters Discrete Prolate Spheroidal Sequences (DPSS) and CLEAN provide the best performance for intermittent ``narrowband'' RFI while Gaussian Progress Regression (GPR) and Least Squares Spectral Analysis (LSSA) provide the best performance for larger RFI gaps. However we caution that these qualitative conclusions are sensitive to the chosen hyperparameters of each inpainting technique. We find these results to be consistent in both simulated and real visibilities. We show that all inpainting techniques reliably reproduce foreground dominated modes in the power spectrum. Since the inpainting techniques should not be capable of reproducing noise realizations, we find that the largest errors occur in the noise dominated delay modes. We show that in the future, as the noise level of the data comes down, CLEAN and DPSS are most capable of reproducing the fine frequency structure in the visibilities of HERA data., Comment: 21 pages, 13 figures
Published: 2022
Full Text: View/download PDF

10. Improved Constraints on the 21 cm EoR Power Spectrum and the X-Ray Heating of the IGM with HERA Phase I Observations

Author: The HERA Collaboration, Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Barkana, Rennan, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Breitman, Daniela, Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, Choudhuri, Samir, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fialkov, Anastasia, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Garsden, Hugh, Glendenning, Brian, Gorce, Adélie, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Heimersheim, Stefan, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David H. E., Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Keith, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., McBride, Lisa, Mesinger, Andrei, Mirocha, Jordan, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Muñoz, Julian B., Murray, Steven G., Nagpal, Vighnesh, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Qin, Yuxiang, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Tan, Jianrong, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Wilensky, Michael J., Williams, Peter K. G., van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Zheng, Haoxuan, The HERA Collaboration, Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Barkana, Rennan, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Breitman, Daniela, Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, Choudhuri, Samir, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fialkov, Anastasia, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Garsden, Hugh, Glendenning, Brian, Gorce, Adélie, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Heimersheim, Stefan, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David H. E., Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Keith, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., McBride, Lisa, Mesinger, Andrei, Mirocha, Jordan, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Muñoz, Julian B., Murray, Steven G., Nagpal, Vighnesh, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Qin, Yuxiang, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Tan, Jianrong, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Wilensky, Michael J., Williams, Peter K. G., van Wyngaarden, Pieter, and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: We report the most sensitive upper limits to date on the 21 cm epoch of reionization power spectrum using 94 nights of observing with Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). Using similar analysis techniques as in previously reported limits (HERA Collaboration 2022a), we find at 95% confidence that $\Delta^2(k = 0.34$ $h$ Mpc$^{-1}$) $\leq 457$ mK$^2$ at $z = 7.9$ and that $\Delta^2 (k = 0.36$ $h$ Mpc$^{-1}) \leq 3,496$ mK$^2$ at $z = 10.4$, an improvement by a factor of 2.1 and 2.6 respectively. These limits are mostly consistent with thermal noise over a wide range of $k$ after our data quality cuts, despite performing a relatively conservative analysis designed to minimize signal loss. Our results are validated with both statistical tests on the data and end-to-end pipeline simulations. We also report updated constraints on the astrophysics of reionization and the cosmic dawn. Using multiple independent modeling and inference techniques previously employed by HERA Collaboration (2022b), we find that the intergalactic medium must have been heated above the adiabatic cooling limit at least as early as $z = 10.4$, ruling out a broad set of so-called "cold reionization" scenarios. If this heating is due to high-mass X-ray binaries during the cosmic dawn, as is generally believed, our result's 99% credible interval excludes the local relationship between soft X-ray luminosity and star formation and thus requires heating driven by evolved low-metallicity stars., Comment: 57 pages, 37 figures. Updated to match the accepted ApJ version. Corresponding author: Joshua S. Dillon
Published: 2022
Full Text: View/download PDF

11. Impact of instrument and data characteristics in the interferometric reconstruction of the 21 cm power spectrum

Author: Gorce, Adélie, Ganjam, Samskruthi, Liu, Adrian, Murray, Steven G., Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Gorce, Adélie, Ganjam, Samskruthi, Liu, Adrian, Murray, Steven G., Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Combining the visibilities measured by an interferometer to form a cosmological power spectrum is a complicated process. In a delay-based analysis, the mapping between instrumental and cosmological space is not a one-to-one relation. Instead, neighbouring modes contribute to the power measured at one point, with their respective contributions encoded in the window functions. To better understand the power measured by an interferometer, we assess the impact of instrument characteristics and analysis choices on these window functions. Focusing on the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) as a case study, we find that long-baseline observations correspond to enhanced low-k tails of the window functions, which facilitate foreground leakage, whilst an informed choice of bandwidth and frequency taper can reduce said tails. With simple test cases and realistic simulations, we show that, apart from tracing mode mixing, the window functions help accurately reconstruct the power spectrum estimator of simulated visibilities. The window functions depend strongly on the beam chromaticity, and less on its spatial structure - a Gaussian approximation, ignoring side lobes, is sufficient. Finally, we investigate the potential of asymmetric window functions, down-weighting the contribution of low-k power to avoid foreground leakage. The window functions presented here correspond to the latest HERA upper limits for the full Phase I data. They allow an accurate reconstruction of the power spectrum measured by the instrument and will be used in future analyses to confront theoretical models and data directly in cylindrical space., Comment: 18 pages, 19 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS
Published: 2022
Full Text: View/download PDF

12. First Results from HERA Phase I: Upper Limits on the Epoch of Reionization 21 cm Power Spectrum

Author: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, de Lera Acedo, Eloy, Dibblee-Barkman, Taylor, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham Richard, Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pascua, Robert, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, de Lera Acedo, Eloy, Dibblee-Barkman, Taylor, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham Richard, Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pascua, Robert, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: We report upper limits on the Epoch of Reionization 21 cm power spectrum at redshifts 7.9 and 10.4 with 18 nights of data (∼36 hr of integration) from Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). The Phase I data show evidence for systematics that can be largely suppressed with systematic models down to a dynamic range of ∼109 with respect to the peak foreground power. This yields a 95% confidence upper limit on the 21 cm power spectrum of ${{\rm{\Delta }}}_{21}^{2}\leqslant {(30.76)}^{2}\ {\mathrm{mK}}^{2}$ at k = 0.192 h Mpc−1 at z = 7.9, and also ${{\rm{\Delta }}}_{21}^{2}\leqslant {(95.74)}^{2}\ {\mathrm{mK}}^{2}$ at k = 0.256 h Mpc−1 at z = 10.4. At z = 7.9, these limits are the most sensitive to date by over an order of magnitude. While we find evidence for residual systematics at low line-of-sight Fourier k∥ modes, at high k∥ modes we find our data to be largely consistent with thermal noise, an indicator that the system could benefit from deeper integrations. The observed systematics could be due to radio frequency interference, cable subreflections, or residual instrumental cross-coupling, and warrant further study. This analysis emphasizes algorithms that have minimal inherent signal loss, although we do perform a careful accounting in a companion paper of the small forms of loss or bias associated with the pipeline. Overall, these results are a promising first step in the development of a tuned, instrument-specific analysis pipeline for HERA, particularly as Phase II construction is completed en route to reaching the full sensitivity of the experiment.
Published: 2022

13. Methods of Error Estimation for Delay Power Spectra in 21 cm Cosmology

Author: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, Tan, Jianrong, Liu, Adrian, Kern, Nicholas S., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Christopher L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, de Lera Acedo, Eloy, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, Tan, Jianrong, Liu, Adrian, Kern, Nicholas S., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Christopher L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, de Lera Acedo, Eloy, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Published: 2022

14. First Results from HERA Phase I: Upper Limits on the Epoch of Reionization 21 cm Power Spectrum

Author: Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, de Lera Acedo, Eloy, Dibblee-Barkman, Taylor, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pascua, Robert, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, de Lera Acedo, Eloy, Dibblee-Barkman, Taylor, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pascua, Robert, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: We report upper limits on the Epoch of Reionization 21 cm power spectrum at redshifts 7.9 and 10.4 with 18 nights of data (∼36 hr of integration) from Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). The Phase I data show evidence for systematics that can be largely suppressed with systematic models down to a dynamic range of ∼109 with respect to the peak foreground power. This yields a 95% confidence upper limit on the 21 cm power spectrum of ${{\rm{\Delta }}}_{21}^{2}\leqslant {(30.76)}^{2}\ {\mathrm{mK}}^{2}$ at k = 0.192 h Mpc−1 at z = 7.9, and also ${{\rm{\Delta }}}_{21}^{2}\leqslant {(95.74)}^{2}\ {\mathrm{mK}}^{2}$ at k = 0.256 h Mpc−1 at z = 10.4. At z = 7.9, these limits are the most sensitive to date by over an order of magnitude. While we find evidence for residual systematics at low line-of-sight Fourier k∥ modes, at high k∥ modes we find our data to be largely consistent with thermal noise, an indicator that the system could benefit from deeper integrations. The observed systematics could be due to radio frequency interference, cable subreflections, or residual instrumental cross-coupling, and warrant further study. This analysis emphasizes algorithms that have minimal inherent signal loss, although we do perform a careful accounting in a companion paper of the small forms of loss or bias associated with the pipeline. Overall, these results are a promising first step in the development of a tuned, instrument-specific analysis pipeline for HERA, particularly as Phase II construction is completed en route to reaching the full sensitivity of the experiment.
Published: 2022

15. H i 21 cm Cosmology and the Bi-spectrum: Closure Diagnostics in Massively Redundant Interferometric Arrays

Author: Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Carilli, C.L., Nikolic, Bojan, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Gale-Sides, K., Abdirashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, de Lera Acedo, Eloy, Dillon, Joshua S., Ewall-Wice, Aaron Michael, Fadana, Gcobisa, Fagnoni, Nicholas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Ghosh, Abhik, Glendenning, Brian, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Mathew, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Neben, Abraham Richard, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, La Plante, Paul, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sell, Raddwine, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Williams, Peter K.G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Department of Physics, MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research, Carilli, C.L., Nikolic, Bojan, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Gale-Sides, K., Abdirashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, de Lera Acedo, Eloy, Dillon, Joshua S., Ewall-Wice, Aaron Michael, Fadana, Gcobisa, Fagnoni, Nicholas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Ghosh, Abhik, Glendenning, Brian, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Mathew, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Neben, Abraham Richard, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, La Plante, Paul, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sell, Raddwine, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Williams, Peter K.G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: New massively redundant low frequency arrays allow for a novel investigation of closure relations in interferometry. We employ commissioning data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array to investigate closure quantities in this densely packed grid array of 14m antennas operating at 100 MHz to 200 MHz. We investigate techniques that utilize closure phase spectra for redundant triads to estimate departures from redundancy for redundant baseline visibilities. We find a median absolute deviation from redundancy in closure phase across the observed frequency range of about 4.5deg. This value translates into a non-redundancy per visibility phase of about 2.6deg, using prototype electronics. The median absolute deviations from redundancy decrease with longer baselines. We show that closure phase spectra can be used to identify ill-behaved antennas in the array, independent of calibration. We investigate the temporal behavior of closure spectra. The Allan variance increases after a one minute stride time, due to passage of the sky through the primary beam of the transit telescope. However, the closure spectra repeat to well within the noise per measurement at corresponding local sidereal times (LST) from day to day. In future papers in this series we will develop the technique of using closure phase spectra in the search for the HI 21cm signal from cosmic reionization.
Published: 2022

16. Direct Optimal Mapping for 21cm Cosmology: A Demonstration with the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array

Author: Xu, Zhilei, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Chen, Kai-Feng, Kim, Honggeun, Dillon, Joshua S., Kern, Nicholas S., Morales, Miguel F., Hazelton, Bryna J., Byrne, Ruby, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-zhe, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Van Van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Xu, Zhilei, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Chen, Kai-Feng, Kim, Honggeun, Dillon, Joshua S., Kern, Nicholas S., Morales, Miguel F., Hazelton, Bryna J., Byrne, Ruby, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Abdurashidova, Zara, Adams, Tyrone, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Baartman, Rushelle, Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Eksteen, Nico, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, Ma, Yin-zhe, MacMahon, David Harold Edward, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Malgas, Keith, Marero, Bradley, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nuwegeld, Hans, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Swarts, Hilton, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Van Van Wyngaarden, Pieter, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Motivated by the desire for wide-field images with well-defined statistical properties for 21cm cosmology, we implement an optimal mapping pipeline that computes a maximum likelihood estimator for the sky using the interferometric measurement equation. We demonstrate this direct optimal mapping with data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization (HERA) Phase I observations. After validating the pipeline with simulated data, we develop a maximum likelihood figure-of-merit for comparing four sky models at 166MHz with a bandwidth of 100kHz. The HERA data agree with the GLEAM catalogs to <10%. After subtracting the GLEAM point sources, the HERA data discriminate between the different continuum sky models, providing most support for the model of Byrne et al. 2021. We report the computation cost for mapping the HERA Phase I data and project the computation for the HERA 320-antenna data; both are feasible with a modern server. The algorithm is broadly applicable to other interferometers and is valid for wide-field and non-coplanar arrays., Comment: 16 pages, 10 figures, 2 tables, published on ApJ
Published: 2022
Full Text: View/download PDF

17. Methods for the Detection of the Epoch of Reionization

Author: Cheng, Carina, Parsons, Aaron1, Cheng, Carina, Cheng, Carina, Parsons, Aaron1, and Cheng, Carina
Abstract: The Epoch of Reionization is one of the last unexplored eras of our Universe's history. Beginning about a billion years after the Big Bang, this epoch is characterized by the births of the first stars and galaxies, whose light subsequently altered the nature of the gas surrounding them. There are several experiments aiming to detect the phase transition of this gas as it changes from neutral hydrogen to ionized hydrogen. Such a detection would open a wealth of information about our early Universe, revealing details about the nature of the first luminous sources and the evolution of structure formation.Interferometers such as the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER) and the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) seek to measure the 21 cm signal from neutral hydrogen and map its evolution over spatial and temporal scales. A detection of reionization, however, is a difficult measurement. Though the 21 cm signal is a powerful 3D probe of the intergalactic medium, it is easily buried underneath bright foreground signals and instrumental systematics. A clean detection of reionization is ambitious and requires analysis methods that maximize data sensitivity and increase confidence in results.The work presented in this thesis addresses many of the key challenges that face the current field of 21 cm cosmology. This includes algorithms to locate contaminated data, methods to ensure accurate power spectrum measurements, and techniques for removing unwanted systematics while preserving the reionization signal. These developments serve as the foundation of the latest 21 cm measurements from the PAPER-64 and PAPER-128 arrays, whose results lie near the forefront of the field. These methods are also fundamental to HERA and future experiments, as they provide a strong foundation for the continued exploration of our cosmic dawn.
Published: 2019

18. Methods for the Detection of the Epoch of Reionization

Author: Cheng, Carina, Parsons, Aaron1, Cheng, Carina, Cheng, Carina, Parsons, Aaron1, and Cheng, Carina
Abstract: The Epoch of Reionization is one of the last unexplored eras of our Universe's history. Beginning about a billion years after the Big Bang, this epoch is characterized by the births of the first stars and galaxies, whose light subsequently altered the nature of the gas surrounding them. There are several experiments aiming to detect the phase transition of this gas as it changes from neutral hydrogen to ionized hydrogen. Such a detection would open a wealth of information about our early Universe, revealing details about the nature of the first luminous sources and the evolution of structure formation.Interferometers such as the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER) and the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) seek to measure the 21 cm signal from neutral hydrogen and map its evolution over spatial and temporal scales. A detection of reionization, however, is a difficult measurement. Though the 21 cm signal is a powerful 3D probe of the intergalactic medium, it is easily buried underneath bright foreground signals and instrumental systematics. A clean detection of reionization is ambitious and requires analysis methods that maximize data sensitivity and increase confidence in results.The work presented in this thesis addresses many of the key challenges that face the current field of 21 cm cosmology. This includes algorithms to locate contaminated data, methods to ensure accurate power spectrum measurements, and techniques for removing unwanted systematics while preserving the reionization signal. These developments serve as the foundation of the latest 21 cm measurements from the PAPER-64 and PAPER-128 arrays, whose results lie near the forefront of the field. These methods are also fundamental to HERA and future experiments, as they provide a strong foundation for the continued exploration of our cosmic dawn.
Published: 2019

19. HERA Phase I Limits on the Cosmic 21-cm Signal: Constraints on Astrophysics and Cosmology During the Epoch of Reionization

Author: The HERA Collaboration, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki, Balfour, Yanga, Barkana, Rennan, Beardsley, Adam, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee, Bowman, Judd, Bradley, Richard, Bull, Phillip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Christopher, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David, Dexter, Matthew, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fialkov, Anastasia, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven, Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna, Heimersheim, Stefan, Hewitt, Jacqueline, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul, Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Mirocha, Jordan, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Munoz, Julian, Murray, Steven, Neben, Abraham, Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Parsons, Aaron, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan, Qin, Yuxiang, Razavi-Ghods, N., Reis, Itamar, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario, Sikder, Sudipta, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter, Zheng, Haoxuan, The HERA Collaboration, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki, Balfour, Yanga, Barkana, Rennan, Beardsley, Adam, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee, Bowman, Judd, Bradley, Richard, Bull, Phillip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Christopher, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David, Dexter, Matthew, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fialkov, Anastasia, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven, Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna, Heimersheim, Stefan, Hewitt, Jacqueline, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul, Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Mirocha, Jordan, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Munoz, Julian, Murray, Steven, Neben, Abraham, Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Parsons, Aaron, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan, Qin, Yuxiang, Razavi-Ghods, N., Reis, Itamar, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario, Sikder, Sudipta, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter, and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Recently, the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) collaboration has produced the experiment's first upper limits on the power spectrum of 21-cm fluctuations at z~8 and 10. Here, we use several independent theoretical models to infer constraints on the intergalactic medium (IGM) and galaxies during the epoch of reionization (EoR) from these limits. We find that the IGM must have been heated above the adiabatic cooling threshold by z~8, independent of uncertainties about the IGM ionization state and the nature of the radio background. Combining HERA limits with galaxy and EoR observations constrains the spin temperature of the z~8 neutral IGM to 27 K < T_S < 630 K (2.3 K < T_S < 640 K) at 68% (95%) confidence. They therefore also place a lower bound on X-ray heating, a previously unconstrained aspects of early galaxies. For example, if the CMB dominates the z~8 radio background, the new HERA limits imply that the first galaxies produced X-rays more efficiently than local ones (with soft band X-ray luminosities per star formation rate constrained to L_X/SFR = { 10^40.2, 10^41.9 } erg/s/(M_sun/yr) at 68% confidence), consistent with expectations of X-ray binaries in low-metallicity environments. The z~10 limits require even earlier heating if dark-matter interactions (e.g., through millicharges) cool down the hydrogen gas. Using a model in which an extra radio background is produced by galaxies, we rule out (at 95% confidence) the combination of high radio and low X-ray luminosities of L_{r,\nu}/SFR > 3.9 x 10^24 W/Hz/(M_sun/yr) and L_X/SFR<10^40 erg/s/(M_sun/yr). The new HERA upper limits neither support nor disfavor a cosmological interpretation of the recent EDGES detection. The analysis framework described here provides a foundation for the interpretation of future HERA results., Comment: 40 pages, 19 figures, submitted to ApJ
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

20. The Correlation Calibration of PAPER-64 data

Author: Gogo, Tamirat G., Ma, Yin-Zhe, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Sievers, Jonathan L., Parsons, Aaron R., Pober, Jonathan C., Jacobs, Daniel C., Cheng, Carina, Kolopanis, Matthew, Liu, Adrian, Kohn, Saul A., Aguirre, James E., Ali, Zaki S., Bernardi, Gianni, Bradley, Richard F., DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matthew R., Dillon, Joshua S., Klima, Pat, MacMahon, David H. E., Moore, David F., Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Walbrugh, William P., Walker, Andre, Gogo, Tamirat G., Ma, Yin-Zhe, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Sievers, Jonathan L., Parsons, Aaron R., Pober, Jonathan C., Jacobs, Daniel C., Cheng, Carina, Kolopanis, Matthew, Liu, Adrian, Kohn, Saul A., Aguirre, James E., Ali, Zaki S., Bernardi, Gianni, Bradley, Richard F., DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matthew R., Dillon, Joshua S., Klima, Pat, MacMahon, David H. E., Moore, David F., Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Walbrugh, William P., and Walker, Andre
Abstract: Observation of redshifted 21-cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) is challenging due to contamination from the bright foreground sources that exceed the signal by several orders of magnitude. The removal of this very high foreground relies on accurate calibration to keep the intrinsic property of the foreground with frequency. Commonly employed calibration techniques for these experiments are the sky model-based and the redundant baseline-based calibration approaches. However, the sky model-based and redundant baseline-based calibration methods could suffer from sky-modeling error and array redundancy imperfection issues, respectively. In this work, we introduce the hybrid correlation calibration ("CorrCal") scheme, which aims to bridge the gap between redundant and sky-based calibration by relaxing redundancy of the array and including sky information into the calibration formalisms. We demonstrate the slight improvement of power spectra, about $-6\%$ deviation at the bin right on the horizon limit of the foreground wedge-like structure, relative to the power spectra before the implementation of "CorrCal" to the data from the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER) experiment, which was otherwise calibrated using redundant baseline calibration. This small improvement of the foreground power spectra around the wedge limit could be suggestive of reduced spectral structure in the data after "CorrCal" calibration, which lays the foundation for future improvement of the calibration algorithm and implementation method., Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures, MNRAS in press
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

21. Automated Detection of Antenna Malfunctions in Large-N Interferometers: A Case Study with the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array

Author: Storer, Dara, Dillon, Joshua S., Jacobs, Daniel C., Morales, Miguel F., Hazelton, Bryna J., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dynes, Scott, Ely, John, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Huang, Tian, Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Riley, Daniel, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Tan, Jianrong, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Storer, Dara, Dillon, Joshua S., Jacobs, Daniel C., Morales, Miguel F., Hazelton, Bryna J., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dynes, Scott, Ely, John, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Huang, Tian, Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Riley, Daniel, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Tan, Jianrong, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: We present a framework for identifying and flagging malfunctioning antennas in large radio interferometers. We outline two distinct categories of metrics designed to detect outliers along known failure modes of large arrays: cross-correlation metrics, based on all antenna pairs, and auto-correlation metrics, based solely on individual antennas. We define and motivate the statistical framework for all metrics used, and present tailored visualizations that aid us in clearly identifying new and existing systematics. We implement these techniques using data from 105 antennas in the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) as a case study. Finally, we provide a detailed algorithm for implementing these metrics as flagging tools on real data sets., Comment: 31 pages, 17 figures
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

22. First Results from HERA Phase I: Upper Limits on the Epoch of Reionization 21 cm Power Spectrum

Author: The HERA Collaboration, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dibblee-Barkman, Taylor, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pascua, Robert, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, The HERA Collaboration, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dibblee-Barkman, Taylor, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pascua, Robert, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: We report upper-limits on the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) 21 cm power spectrum at redshifts 7.9 and 10.4 with 18 nights of data ($\sim36$ hours of integration) from Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). The Phase I data show evidence for systematics that can be largely suppressed with systematic models down to a dynamic range of $\sim10^9$ with respect to the peak foreground power. This yields a 95% confidence upper limit on the 21 cm power spectrum of $\Delta^2_{21} \le (30.76)^2\ {\rm mK}^2$ at $k=0.192\ h\ {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ at $z=7.9$, and also $\Delta^2_{21} \le (95.74)^2\ {\rm mK}^2$ at $k=0.256\ h\ {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ at $z=10.4$. At $z=7.9$, these limits are the most sensitive to-date by over an order of magnitude. While we find evidence for residual systematics at low line-of-sight Fourier $k_\parallel$ modes, at high $k_\parallel$ modes we find our data to be largely consistent with thermal noise, an indicator that the system could benefit from deeper integrations. The observed systematics could be due to radio frequency interference, cable sub-reflections, or residual instrumental cross-coupling, and warrant further study. This analysis emphasizes algorithms that have minimal inherent signal loss, although we do perform a careful accounting in a companion paper of the small forms of loss or bias associated with the pipeline. Overall, these results are a promising first step in the development of a tuned, instrument-specific analysis pipeline for HERA, particularly as Phase II construction is completed en route to reaching the full sensitivity of the experiment., Comment: Accepted to ApJ. https://reionization.org/science/public-data-release-1
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

23. HERA Phase I Limits on the Cosmic 21-cm Signal: Constraints on Astrophysics and Cosmology During the Epoch of Reionization

Author: The HERA Collaboration, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki, Balfour, Yanga, Barkana, Rennan, Beardsley, Adam, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee, Bowman, Judd, Bradley, Richard, Bull, Phillip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Christopher, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David, Dexter, Matthew, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fialkov, Anastasia, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven, Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna, Heimersheim, Stefan, Hewitt, Jacqueline, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul, Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Mirocha, Jordan, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Munoz, Julian, Murray, Steven, Neben, Abraham, Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Parsons, Aaron, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan, Qin, Yuxiang, Razavi-Ghods, N., Reis, Itamar, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario, Sikder, Sudipta, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter, Zheng, Haoxuan, The HERA Collaboration, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki, Balfour, Yanga, Barkana, Rennan, Beardsley, Adam, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee, Bowman, Judd, Bradley, Richard, Bull, Phillip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Christopher, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David, Dexter, Matthew, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fialkov, Anastasia, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven, Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna, Heimersheim, Stefan, Hewitt, Jacqueline, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul, Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Mirocha, Jordan, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Munoz, Julian, Murray, Steven, Neben, Abraham, Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Parsons, Aaron, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan, Qin, Yuxiang, Razavi-Ghods, N., Reis, Itamar, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario, Sikder, Sudipta, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter, and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Recently, the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) collaboration has produced the experiment's first upper limits on the power spectrum of 21-cm fluctuations at z~8 and 10. Here, we use several independent theoretical models to infer constraints on the intergalactic medium (IGM) and galaxies during the epoch of reionization (EoR) from these limits. We find that the IGM must have been heated above the adiabatic cooling threshold by z~8, independent of uncertainties about the IGM ionization state and the nature of the radio background. Combining HERA limits with galaxy and EoR observations constrains the spin temperature of the z~8 neutral IGM to 27 K < T_S < 630 K (2.3 K < T_S < 640 K) at 68% (95%) confidence. They therefore also place a lower bound on X-ray heating, a previously unconstrained aspects of early galaxies. For example, if the CMB dominates the z~8 radio background, the new HERA limits imply that the first galaxies produced X-rays more efficiently than local ones (with soft band X-ray luminosities per star formation rate constrained to L_X/SFR = { 10^40.2, 10^41.9 } erg/s/(M_sun/yr) at 68% confidence), consistent with expectations of X-ray binaries in low-metallicity environments. The z~10 limits require even earlier heating if dark-matter interactions (e.g., through millicharges) cool down the hydrogen gas. Using a model in which an extra radio background is produced by galaxies, we rule out (at 95% confidence) the combination of high radio and low X-ray luminosities of L_{r,\nu}/SFR > 3.9 x 10^24 W/Hz/(M_sun/yr) and L_X/SFR<10^40 erg/s/(M_sun/yr). The new HERA upper limits neither support nor disfavor a cosmological interpretation of the recent EDGES detection. The analysis framework described here provides a foundation for the interpretation of future HERA results., Comment: 40 pages, 19 figures, submitted to ApJ
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

24. Effects of model incompleteness on the drift-scan calibration of radio telescopes

Author: Gehlot, Bharat K., Jacobs, Daniel C., Bowman, Judd D., Mahesh, Nivedita, Murray, Steven G., Kolopanis, Matthew, Beardsley, Adam P., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Monsalve, Raul A., Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Tegmark, Max, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Gehlot, Bharat K., Jacobs, Daniel C., Bowman, Judd D., Mahesh, Nivedita, Murray, Steven G., Kolopanis, Matthew, Beardsley, Adam P., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Monsalve, Raul A., Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Tegmark, Max, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Precision calibration poses challenges to experiments probing the redshifted 21-cm signal of neutral hydrogen from the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization (z~30-6). In both interferometric and global signal experiments, systematic calibration is the leading source of error. Though many aspects of calibration have been studied, the overlap between the two types of instruments has received less attention. We investigate the sky based calibration of total power measurements with a HERA dish and an EDGES style antenna to understand the role of auto-correlations in the calibration of an interferometer and the role of sky in calibrating a total power instrument. Using simulations we study various scenarios such as time variable gain, incomplete sky calibration model, and primary beam model. We find that temporal gain drifts, sky model incompleteness, and beam inaccuracies cause biases in the receiver gain amplitude and the receiver temperature estimates. In some cases, these biases mix spectral structure between beam and sky resulting in spectrally variable gain errors. Applying the calibration method to the HERA and EDGES data, we find good agreement with calibration via the more standard methods. Although instrumental gains are consistent with beam and sky errors similar in scale to those simulated, the receiver temperatures show significant deviations from expected values. While we show that it is possible to partially mitigate biases due to model inaccuracies by incorporating a time-dependent gain model in calibration, the resulting errors on calibration products are larger and more correlated. Completely addressing these biases will require more accurate sky and primary beam models., Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in MNRAS main journal
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

25. The Correlation Calibration of PAPER-64 data

Author: Gogo, Tamirat G., Ma, Yin-Zhe, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Sievers, Jonathan L., Parsons, Aaron R., Pober, Jonathan C., Jacobs, Daniel C., Cheng, Carina, Kolopanis, Matthew, Liu, Adrian, Kohn, Saul A., Aguirre, James E., Ali, Zaki S., Bernardi, Gianni, Bradley, Richard F., DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matthew R., Dillon, Joshua S., Klima, Pat, MacMahon, David H. E., Moore, David F., Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Walbrugh, William P., Walker, Andre, Gogo, Tamirat G., Ma, Yin-Zhe, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Sievers, Jonathan L., Parsons, Aaron R., Pober, Jonathan C., Jacobs, Daniel C., Cheng, Carina, Kolopanis, Matthew, Liu, Adrian, Kohn, Saul A., Aguirre, James E., Ali, Zaki S., Bernardi, Gianni, Bradley, Richard F., DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matthew R., Dillon, Joshua S., Klima, Pat, MacMahon, David H. E., Moore, David F., Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Walbrugh, William P., and Walker, Andre
Abstract: Observation of redshifted 21-cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) is challenging due to contamination from the bright foreground sources that exceed the signal by several orders of magnitude. The removal of this very high foreground relies on accurate calibration to keep the intrinsic property of the foreground with frequency. Commonly employed calibration techniques for these experiments are the sky model-based and the redundant baseline-based calibration approaches. However, the sky model-based and redundant baseline-based calibration methods could suffer from sky-modeling error and array redundancy imperfection issues, respectively. In this work, we introduce the hybrid correlation calibration ("CorrCal") scheme, which aims to bridge the gap between redundant and sky-based calibration by relaxing redundancy of the array and including sky information into the calibration formalisms. We demonstrate the slight improvement of power spectra, about $-6\%$ deviation at the bin right on the horizon limit of the foreground wedge-like structure, relative to the power spectra before the implementation of "CorrCal" to the data from the Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER) experiment, which was otherwise calibrated using redundant baseline calibration. This small improvement of the foreground power spectra around the wedge limit could be suggestive of reduced spectral structure in the data after "CorrCal" calibration, which lays the foundation for future improvement of the calibration algorithm and implementation method., Comment: 18 pages, 12 figures, MNRAS in press
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

26. Automated Detection of Antenna Malfunctions in Large-N Interferometers: A Case Study with the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array

Author: Storer, Dara, Dillon, Joshua S., Jacobs, Daniel C., Morales, Miguel F., Hazelton, Bryna J., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dynes, Scott, Ely, John, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Huang, Tian, Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Riley, Daniel, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Tan, Jianrong, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Storer, Dara, Dillon, Joshua S., Jacobs, Daniel C., Morales, Miguel F., Hazelton, Bryna J., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dexter, Matt, Dynes, Scott, Ely, John, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Huang, Tian, Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Liu, Adrian, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Martinot, Zachary E., Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Riley, Daniel, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Tan, Jianrong, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: We present a framework for identifying and flagging malfunctioning antennas in large radio interferometers. We outline two distinct categories of metrics designed to detect outliers along known failure modes of large arrays: cross-correlation metrics, based on all antenna pairs, and auto-correlation metrics, based solely on individual antennas. We define and motivate the statistical framework for all metrics used, and present tailored visualizations that aid us in clearly identifying new and existing systematics. We implement these techniques using data from 105 antennas in the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) as a case study. Finally, we provide a detailed algorithm for implementing these metrics as flagging tools on real data sets., Comment: 31 pages, 17 figures
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

27. HERA Phase I Limits on the Cosmic 21-cm Signal: Constraints on Astrophysics and Cosmology During the Epoch of Reionization

Author: The HERA Collaboration, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki, Balfour, Yanga, Barkana, Rennan, Beardsley, Adam, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee, Bowman, Judd, Bradley, Richard, Bull, Phillip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Christopher, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David, Dexter, Matthew, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fialkov, Anastasia, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven, Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna, Heimersheim, Stefan, Hewitt, Jacqueline, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul, Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Mirocha, Jordan, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Munoz, Julian, Murray, Steven, Neben, Abraham, Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Parsons, Aaron, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan, Qin, Yuxiang, Razavi-Ghods, N., Reis, Itamar, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario, Sikder, Sudipta, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter, Zheng, Haoxuan, The HERA Collaboration, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki, Balfour, Yanga, Barkana, Rennan, Beardsley, Adam, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee, Bowman, Judd, Bradley, Richard, Bull, Phillip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Christopher, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David, Dexter, Matthew, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fialkov, Anastasia, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven, Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna, Heimersheim, Stefan, Hewitt, Jacqueline, Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul, Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Mirocha, Jordan, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel, Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Munoz, Julian, Murray, Steven, Neben, Abraham, Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Parsons, Aaron, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan, Qin, Yuxiang, Razavi-Ghods, N., Reis, Itamar, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario, Sikder, Sudipta, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter, and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Recently, the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) collaboration has produced the experiment's first upper limits on the power spectrum of 21-cm fluctuations at z~8 and 10. Here, we use several independent theoretical models to infer constraints on the intergalactic medium (IGM) and galaxies during the epoch of reionization (EoR) from these limits. We find that the IGM must have been heated above the adiabatic cooling threshold by z~8, independent of uncertainties about the IGM ionization state and the nature of the radio background. Combining HERA limits with galaxy and EoR observations constrains the spin temperature of the z~8 neutral IGM to 27 K < T_S < 630 K (2.3 K < T_S < 640 K) at 68% (95%) confidence. They therefore also place a lower bound on X-ray heating, a previously unconstrained aspects of early galaxies. For example, if the CMB dominates the z~8 radio background, the new HERA limits imply that the first galaxies produced X-rays more efficiently than local ones (with soft band X-ray luminosities per star formation rate constrained to L_X/SFR = { 10^40.2, 10^41.9 } erg/s/(M_sun/yr) at 68% confidence), consistent with expectations of X-ray binaries in low-metallicity environments. The z~10 limits require even earlier heating if dark-matter interactions (e.g., through millicharges) cool down the hydrogen gas. Using a model in which an extra radio background is produced by galaxies, we rule out (at 95% confidence) the combination of high radio and low X-ray luminosities of L_{r,\nu}/SFR > 3.9 x 10^24 W/Hz/(M_sun/yr) and L_X/SFR<10^40 erg/s/(M_sun/yr). The new HERA upper limits neither support nor disfavor a cosmological interpretation of the recent EDGES detection. The analysis framework described here provides a foundation for the interpretation of future HERA results., Comment: 40 pages, 19 figures, accepted to ApJ
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

28. First Results from HERA Phase I: Upper Limits on the Epoch of Reionization 21 cm Power Spectrum

Author: The HERA Collaboration, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dibblee-Barkman, Taylor, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pascua, Robert, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, The HERA Collaboration, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dibblee-Barkman, Taylor, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pascua, Robert, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: We report upper-limits on the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) 21 cm power spectrum at redshifts 7.9 and 10.4 with 18 nights of data ($\sim36$ hours of integration) from Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). The Phase I data show evidence for systematics that can be largely suppressed with systematic models down to a dynamic range of $\sim10^9$ with respect to the peak foreground power. This yields a 95% confidence upper limit on the 21 cm power spectrum of $\Delta^2_{21} \le (30.76)^2\ {\rm mK}^2$ at $k=0.192\ h\ {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ at $z=7.9$, and also $\Delta^2_{21} \le (95.74)^2\ {\rm mK}^2$ at $k=0.256\ h\ {\rm Mpc}^{-1}$ at $z=10.4$. At $z=7.9$, these limits are the most sensitive to-date by over an order of magnitude. While we find evidence for residual systematics at low line-of-sight Fourier $k_\parallel$ modes, at high $k_\parallel$ modes we find our data to be largely consistent with thermal noise, an indicator that the system could benefit from deeper integrations. The observed systematics could be due to radio frequency interference, cable sub-reflections, or residual instrumental cross-coupling, and warrant further study. This analysis emphasizes algorithms that have minimal inherent signal loss, although we do perform a careful accounting in a companion paper of the small forms of loss or bias associated with the pipeline. Overall, these results are a promising first step in the development of a tuned, instrument-specific analysis pipeline for HERA, particularly as Phase II construction is completed en route to reaching the full sensitivity of the experiment., Comment: Accepted to ApJ. https://reionization.org/science/public-data-release-1
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

29. Effects of model incompleteness on the drift-scan calibration of radio telescopes

Author: Gehlot, Bharat K., Jacobs, Daniel C., Bowman, Judd D., Mahesh, Nivedita, Murray, Steven G., Kolopanis, Matthew, Beardsley, Adam P., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Monsalve, Raul A., Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Tegmark, Max, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Gehlot, Bharat K., Jacobs, Daniel C., Bowman, Judd D., Mahesh, Nivedita, Murray, Steven G., Kolopanis, Matthew, Beardsley, Adam P., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Monsalve, Raul A., Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Tegmark, Max, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Precision calibration poses challenges to experiments probing the redshifted 21-cm signal of neutral hydrogen from the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization (z~30-6). In both interferometric and global signal experiments, systematic calibration is the leading source of error. Though many aspects of calibration have been studied, the overlap between the two types of instruments has received less attention. We investigate the sky based calibration of total power measurements with a HERA dish and an EDGES style antenna to understand the role of auto-correlations in the calibration of an interferometer and the role of sky in calibrating a total power instrument. Using simulations we study various scenarios such as time variable gain, incomplete sky calibration model, and primary beam model. We find that temporal gain drifts, sky model incompleteness, and beam inaccuracies cause biases in the receiver gain amplitude and the receiver temperature estimates. In some cases, these biases mix spectral structure between beam and sky resulting in spectrally variable gain errors. Applying the calibration method to the HERA and EDGES data, we find good agreement with calibration via the more standard methods. Although instrumental gains are consistent with beam and sky errors similar in scale to those simulated, the receiver temperatures show significant deviations from expected values. While we show that it is possible to partially mitigate biases due to model inaccuracies by incorporating a time-dependent gain model in calibration, the resulting errors on calibration products are larger and more correlated. Completely addressing these biases will require more accurate sky and primary beam models., Comment: 16 pages, 13 figures, 1 table; accepted for publication in MNRAS main journal
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

30. Validation of the HERA Phase I Epoch of Reionization 21 cm Power Spectrum Software Pipeline

Author: Aguirre, James E., Murray, Steven G., Pascua, Robert, Martinot, Zachary E., Burba, Jacob, Dillon, Joshua S., Jacobs, Daniel C., Kern, Nicholas S., Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, Liu, Adrian, Whitler, Lily, Abdurashidova, Zara, Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kohn, Saul A., La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Aguirre, James E., Murray, Steven G., Pascua, Robert, Martinot, Zachary E., Burba, Jacob, Dillon, Joshua S., Jacobs, Daniel C., Kern, Nicholas S., Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, Liu, Adrian, Whitler, Lily, Abdurashidova, Zara, Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kohn, Saul A., La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: We describe the validation of the HERA Phase I software pipeline by a series of modular tests, building up to an end-to-end simulation. The philosophy of this approach is to validate the software and algorithms used in the Phase I upper limit analysis on wholly synthetic data satisfying the assumptions of that analysis, not addressing whether the actual data meet these assumptions. We discuss the organization of this validation approach, the specific modular tests performed, and the construction of the end-to-end simulations. We explicitly discuss the limitations in scope of the current simulation effort. With mock visibility data generated from a known analytic power spectrum and a wide range of realistic instrumental effects and foregrounds, we demonstrate that the current pipeline produces power spectrum estimates that are consistent with known analytic inputs to within thermal noise levels (at the 2 sigma level) for k > 0.2 h/Mpc for both bands and fields considered. Our input spectrum is intentionally amplified to enable a strong `detection' at k ~0.2 h/Mpc -- at the level of ~25 sigma -- with foregrounds dominating on larger scales, and thermal noise dominating at smaller scales. Our pipeline is able to detect this amplified input signal after suppressing foregrounds with a dynamic range (foreground to noise ratio) of > 10^7. Our validation test suite uncovered several sources of scale-independent signal loss throughout the pipeline, whose amplitude is well-characterized and accounted for in the final estimates. We conclude with a discussion of the steps required for the next round of data analysis., Comment: 32 pages, 20 figures. Submitted to the Astrophysical Journal
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

31. A Real Time Processing System for Big Data in Astronomy: Applications to HERA

Author: La Plante, Paul, Williams, Peter K. G., Kolopanis, Matthew, Dillon, Joshua S., Beardsley, Adam P., Kern, Nicholas S., Wilensky, Michael, Ali, Zaki S., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Balfour, Yanga, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jaspar, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Lanman, Adam, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Zheng, Haoxuan, La Plante, Paul, Williams, Peter K. G., Kolopanis, Matthew, Dillon, Joshua S., Beardsley, Adam P., Kern, Nicholas S., Wilensky, Michael, Ali, Zaki S., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Balfour, Yanga, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jaspar, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Lanman, Adam, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Parsons, Aaron R., Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: As current- and next-generation astronomical instruments come online, they will generate an unprecedented deluge of data. Analyzing these data in real time presents unique conceptual and computational challenges, and their long-term storage and archiving is scientifically essential for generating reliable, reproducible results. We present here the real-time processing (RTP) system for the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), a radio interferometer endeavoring to provide the first detection of the highly redshifted 21 cm signal from Cosmic Dawn and the Epoch of Reionization by an interferometer. The RTP system consists of analysis routines run on raw data shortly after they are acquired, such as calibration and detection of radio-frequency interference (RFI) events. RTP works closely with the Librarian, the HERA data storage and transfer manager which automatically ingests data and transfers copies to other clusters for post-processing analysis. Both the RTP system and the Librarian are public and open source software, which allows for them to be modified for use in other scientific collaborations. When fully constructed, HERA is projected to generate over 50 terabytes (TB) of data each night, and the RTP system enables the successful scientific analysis of these data., Comment: 15 pages, 3 figures, published in Astronomy and Computing
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

32. Methods of Error Estimation for Delay Power Spectra in $21\,\textrm{cm}$ Cosmology

Author: Tan, Jianrong, Liu, Adrian, Kern, Nicholas S., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Christopher L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Tan, Jianrong, Liu, Adrian, Kern, Nicholas S., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Carilli, Christopher L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Singh, Saurabh, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Precise measurements of the 21 cm power spectrum are crucial for understanding the physical processes of hydrogen reionization. Currently, this probe is being pursued by low-frequency radio interferometer arrays. As these experiments come closer to making a first detection of the signal, error estimation will play an increasingly important role in setting robust measurements. Using the delay power spectrum approach, we have produced a critical examination of different ways that one can estimate error bars on the power spectrum. We do this through a synthesis of analytic work, simulations of toy models, and tests on small amounts of real data. We find that, although computed independently, the different error bar methodologies are in good agreement with each other in the noise-dominated regime of the power spectrum. For our preferred methodology, the predicted probability distribution function is consistent with the empirical noise power distributions from both simulated and real data. This diagnosis is mainly in support of the forthcoming HERA upper limit, and also is expected to be more generally applicable., Comment: 35 Pages, 9 Figures, 4 Tables. Replaced with accepted ApJ version; some clarifying text added in response to referee comments with no changes to results
Published: 2021
Full Text: View/download PDF

33. Measuring HERA's primary beam in-situ: methodology and first results

Author: Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Kern, Nicholas S., Nikolic, Bojan, Pober, Jonathan C., Bernardi, Gianni, Carilli, Chris L., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, de~Lera~Acedo, Eloy, Dillon, Joshua S., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La~Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. ~G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Kern, Nicholas S., Nikolic, Bojan, Pober, Jonathan C., Bernardi, Gianni, Carilli, Chris L., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, de~Lera~Acedo, Eloy, Dillon, Joshua S., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La~Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. ~G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: The central challenge in 21~cm cosmology is isolating the cosmological signal from bright foregrounds. Many separation techniques rely on the accurate knowledge of the sky and the instrumental response, including the antenna primary beam. For drift-scan telescopes such as the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array \citep[HERA, ][]{DeBoer2017} that do not move, primary beam characterization is particularly challenging because standard beam-calibration routines do not apply \citep{Cornwell2005} and current techniques require accurate source catalogs at the telescope resolution. We present an extension of the method from \citet{Pober2012} where they use beam symmetries to create a network of overlapping source tracks that break the degeneracy between source flux density and beam response and allow their simultaneous estimation. We fit the beam response of our instrument using early HERA observations and find that our results agree well with electromagnetic simulations down to a -20~dB level in power relative to peak gain for sources with high signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, we construct a source catalog with 90 sources down to a flux density of 1.4~Jy at 151~MHz., Comment: 22 pages, 22 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

34. Detection of Cosmic Structures using the Bispectrum Phase. II. First Results from Application to Cosmic Reionization Using the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array

Author: Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Carilli, Chris L., Nikolic, Bojan, Kent, James, Mesinger, Andrei, Kern, Nicholas S., Bernardi, Gianni, Matika, Siyanda, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Carilli, Chris L., Nikolic, Bojan, Kent, James, Mesinger, Andrei, Kern, Nicholas S., Bernardi, Gianni, Matika, Siyanda, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Characterizing the epoch of reionization (EoR) at $z\gtrsim 6$ via the redshifted 21 cm line of neutral Hydrogen (HI) is critical to modern astrophysics and cosmology, and thus a key science goal of many current and planned low-frequency radio telescopes. The primary challenge to detecting this signal is the overwhelmingly bright foreground emission at these frequencies, placing stringent requirements on the knowledge of the instruments and inaccuracies in analyses. Results from these experiments have largely been limited not by thermal sensitivity but by systematics, particularly caused by the inability to calibrate the instrument to high accuracy. The interferometric bispectrum phase is immune to antenna-based calibration and errors therein, and presents an independent alternative to detect the EoR HI fluctuations while largely avoiding calibration systematics. Here, we provide a demonstration of this technique on a subset of data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) to place approximate constraints on the brightness temperature of the intergalactic medium (IGM). From this limited data, at $z=7.7$ we infer "$1\sigma$" upper limits on the IGM brightness temperature to be $\le 316$ "pseudo" mK at $\kappa_\parallel=0.33$ "pseudo" $h$ Mpc$^{-1}$ (data-limited) and $\le 1000$ "pseudo" mK at $\kappa_\parallel=0.875$ "pseudo" $h$ Mpc$^{-1}$ (noise-limited). The "pseudo" units denote only an approximate and not an exact correspondence to the actual distance scales and brightness temperatures. By propagating models in parallel to the data analysis, we confirm that the dynamic range required to separate the cosmic HI signal from the foregrounds is similar to that in standard approaches, and the power spectrum of the bispectrum phase is still data-limited (at $\gtrsim 10^6$ dynamic range) indicating scope for further improvement in sensitivity as the array build-out continues., Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures (including sub-figures). Published in PhRvD. Abstract may be slightly abridged compared to the actual manuscript due to length limitations on arXiv
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

35. Foreground modelling via Gaussian process regression: an application to HERA data

Author: Ghosh, Abhik, Mertens, Florent, Bernardi, Gianni, Santos, Mário G., Kern, Nicholas S., Carilli, Christopher L., Grobler, Trienko L., Koopmans, Léon V. E., Jacobs, Daniel C., Liu, Adrian, Parsons, Aaron R., Morales, Miguel F., Aguirre, James E., Dillon, Joshua S., Hazelton, Bryna J., Smirnov, Oleg M., Gehlot, Bharat K., Matika, Siyanda, Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Beardsley, Adam P., Benefo, Roshan K., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Cheng, Carina, Chichura, Paul M., DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fadana, Gcobisa, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fortino, Austin F., Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gallardo, Samavarti, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Hickish, Jack, Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Igarashi, Amy S., Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lekalake, Telalo, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Mathison, Nathan, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sell, Raddwine, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Tegmark, Max, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Ghosh, Abhik, Mertens, Florent, Bernardi, Gianni, Santos, Mário G., Kern, Nicholas S., Carilli, Christopher L., Grobler, Trienko L., Koopmans, Léon V. E., Jacobs, Daniel C., Liu, Adrian, Parsons, Aaron R., Morales, Miguel F., Aguirre, James E., Dillon, Joshua S., Hazelton, Bryna J., Smirnov, Oleg M., Gehlot, Bharat K., Matika, Siyanda, Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Beardsley, Adam P., Benefo, Roshan K., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Cheng, Carina, Chichura, Paul M., DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fadana, Gcobisa, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fortino, Austin F., Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gallardo, Samavarti, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Hickish, Jack, Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Igarashi, Amy S., Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lekalake, Telalo, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Mathison, Nathan, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sell, Raddwine, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Tegmark, Max, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: The key challenge in the observation of the redshifted 21-cm signal from cosmic reionization is its separation from the much brighter foreground emission. Such separation relies on the different spectral properties of the two components, although, in real life, the foreground intrinsic spectrum is often corrupted by the instrumental response, inducing systematic effects that can further jeopardize the measurement of the 21-cm signal. In this paper, we use Gaussian Process Regression to model both foreground emission and instrumental systematics in $\sim 2$ hours of data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array. We find that a simple co-variance model with three components matches the data well, giving a residual power spectrum with white noise properties. These consist of an "intrinsic" and instrumentally corrupted component with a coherence-scale of 20 MHz and 2.4 MHz respectively (dominating the line of sight power spectrum over scales $k_{\parallel} \le 0.2$ h cMpc$^{-1}$) and a baseline dependent periodic signal with a period of $\sim 1$ MHz (dominating over $k_{\parallel} \sim 0.4 - 0.8$h cMpc$^{-1}$) which should be distinguishable from the 21-cm EoR signal whose typical coherence-scales is $\sim 0.8$ MHz., Comment: 15 pages, 15 figures, 1 table, Accepted to MNRAS
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

36. Redundant-Baseline Calibration of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array

Author: Dillon, Joshua S., Lee, Max, Ali, Zaki S., Parsons, Aaron R., Orosz, Naomi, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, La Plante, Paul, Beardsley, Adam P., Kern, Nicholas S., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Balfour, Yanga, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Tegmark, Max, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Dillon, Joshua S., Lee, Max, Ali, Zaki S., Parsons, Aaron R., Orosz, Naomi, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, La Plante, Paul, Beardsley, Adam P., Kern, Nicholas S., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Balfour, Yanga, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Tegmark, Max, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: In 21 cm cosmology, precision calibration is key to the separation of the neutral hydrogen signal from very bright but spectrally-smooth astrophysical foregrounds. The Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), an interferometer specialized for 21 cm cosmology and now under construction in South Africa, was designed to be largely calibrated using the self-consistency of repeated measurements of the same interferometric modes. This technique, known as "redundant-baseline calibration" resolves most of the internal degrees of freedom in the calibration problem. It assumes, however, on antenna elements with identical primary beams placed precisely on a redundant grid. In this work, we review the detailed implementation of the algorithms enabling redundant-baseline calibration and report results with HERA data. We quantify the effects of real-world non-redundancy and how they compare to the idealized scenario in which redundant measurements differ only in their noise realizations. Finally, we study how non-redundancy can produce spurious temporal structure in our calibration solutions--both in data and in simulations--and present strategies for mitigating that structure., Comment: 24 Pages, 19 Figures. Updated to match the accepted MNRAS version
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

37. Detection of Cosmic Structures using the Bispectrum Phase. II. First Results from Application to Cosmic Reionization Using the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array

Author: Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Carilli, Chris L., Nikolic, Bojan, Kent, James, Mesinger, Andrei, Kern, Nicholas S., Bernardi, Gianni, Matika, Siyanda, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Carilli, Chris L., Nikolic, Bojan, Kent, James, Mesinger, Andrei, Kern, Nicholas S., Bernardi, Gianni, Matika, Siyanda, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Characterizing the epoch of reionization (EoR) at $z\gtrsim 6$ via the redshifted 21 cm line of neutral Hydrogen (HI) is critical to modern astrophysics and cosmology, and thus a key science goal of many current and planned low-frequency radio telescopes. The primary challenge to detecting this signal is the overwhelmingly bright foreground emission at these frequencies, placing stringent requirements on the knowledge of the instruments and inaccuracies in analyses. Results from these experiments have largely been limited not by thermal sensitivity but by systematics, particularly caused by the inability to calibrate the instrument to high accuracy. The interferometric bispectrum phase is immune to antenna-based calibration and errors therein, and presents an independent alternative to detect the EoR HI fluctuations while largely avoiding calibration systematics. Here, we provide a demonstration of this technique on a subset of data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) to place approximate constraints on the brightness temperature of the intergalactic medium (IGM). From this limited data, at $z=7.7$ we infer "$1\sigma$" upper limits on the IGM brightness temperature to be $\le 316$ "pseudo" mK at $\kappa_\parallel=0.33$ "pseudo" $h$ Mpc$^{-1}$ (data-limited) and $\le 1000$ "pseudo" mK at $\kappa_\parallel=0.875$ "pseudo" $h$ Mpc$^{-1}$ (noise-limited). The "pseudo" units denote only an approximate and not an exact correspondence to the actual distance scales and brightness temperatures. By propagating models in parallel to the data analysis, we confirm that the dynamic range required to separate the cosmic HI signal from the foregrounds is similar to that in standard approaches, and the power spectrum of the bispectrum phase is still data-limited (at $\gtrsim 10^6$ dynamic range) indicating scope for further improvement in sensitivity as the array build-out continues., Comment: 22 pages, 12 figures (including sub-figures). Published in PhRvD. Abstract may be slightly abridged compared to the actual manuscript due to length limitations on arXiv
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

38. Measuring HERA's primary beam in-situ: methodology and first results

Author: Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Kern, Nicholas S., Nikolic, Bojan, Pober, Jonathan C., Bernardi, Gianni, Carilli, Chris L., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, de~Lera~Acedo, Eloy, Dillon, Joshua S., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La~Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. ~G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Parsons, Aaron R., Kern, Nicholas S., Nikolic, Bojan, Pober, Jonathan C., Bernardi, Gianni, Carilli, Chris L., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, de~Lera~Acedo, Eloy, Dillon, Joshua S., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La~Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. ~G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: The central challenge in 21~cm cosmology is isolating the cosmological signal from bright foregrounds. Many separation techniques rely on the accurate knowledge of the sky and the instrumental response, including the antenna primary beam. For drift-scan telescopes such as the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array \citep[HERA, ][]{DeBoer2017} that do not move, primary beam characterization is particularly challenging because standard beam-calibration routines do not apply \citep{Cornwell2005} and current techniques require accurate source catalogs at the telescope resolution. We present an extension of the method from \citet{Pober2012} where they use beam symmetries to create a network of overlapping source tracks that break the degeneracy between source flux density and beam response and allow their simultaneous estimation. We fit the beam response of our instrument using early HERA observations and find that our results agree well with electromagnetic simulations down to a -20~dB level in power relative to peak gain for sources with high signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, we construct a source catalog with 90 sources down to a flux density of 1.4~Jy at 151~MHz., Comment: 22 pages, 22 figures, accepted for publication in ApJ
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

39. Foreground modelling via Gaussian process regression: an application to HERA data

Author: Ghosh, Abhik, Mertens, Florent, Bernardi, Gianni, Santos, Mário G., Kern, Nicholas S., Carilli, Christopher L., Grobler, Trienko L., Koopmans, Léon V. E., Jacobs, Daniel C., Liu, Adrian, Parsons, Aaron R., Morales, Miguel F., Aguirre, James E., Dillon, Joshua S., Hazelton, Bryna J., Smirnov, Oleg M., Gehlot, Bharat K., Matika, Siyanda, Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Beardsley, Adam P., Benefo, Roshan K., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Cheng, Carina, Chichura, Paul M., DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fadana, Gcobisa, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fortino, Austin F., Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gallardo, Samavarti, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Hickish, Jack, Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Igarashi, Amy S., Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lekalake, Telalo, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Mathison, Nathan, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sell, Raddwine, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Tegmark, Max, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Ghosh, Abhik, Mertens, Florent, Bernardi, Gianni, Santos, Mário G., Kern, Nicholas S., Carilli, Christopher L., Grobler, Trienko L., Koopmans, Léon V. E., Jacobs, Daniel C., Liu, Adrian, Parsons, Aaron R., Morales, Miguel F., Aguirre, James E., Dillon, Joshua S., Hazelton, Bryna J., Smirnov, Oleg M., Gehlot, Bharat K., Matika, Siyanda, Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Beardsley, Adam P., Benefo, Roshan K., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Cheng, Carina, Chichura, Paul M., DeBoer, David R., Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fadana, Gcobisa, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fortino, Austin F., Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gallardo, Samavarti, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Hickish, Jack, Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Igarashi, Amy S., Kariseb, MacCalvin, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lekalake, Telalo, Loots, Anita, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Mathison, Nathan, Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sell, Raddwine, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Tegmark, Max, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: The key challenge in the observation of the redshifted 21-cm signal from cosmic reionization is its separation from the much brighter foreground emission. Such separation relies on the different spectral properties of the two components, although, in real life, the foreground intrinsic spectrum is often corrupted by the instrumental response, inducing systematic effects that can further jeopardize the measurement of the 21-cm signal. In this paper, we use Gaussian Process Regression to model both foreground emission and instrumental systematics in $\sim 2$ hours of data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array. We find that a simple co-variance model with three components matches the data well, giving a residual power spectrum with white noise properties. These consist of an "intrinsic" and instrumentally corrupted component with a coherence-scale of 20 MHz and 2.4 MHz respectively (dominating the line of sight power spectrum over scales $k_{\parallel} \le 0.2$ h cMpc$^{-1}$) and a baseline dependent periodic signal with a period of $\sim 1$ MHz (dominating over $k_{\parallel} \sim 0.4 - 0.8$h cMpc$^{-1}$) which should be distinguishable from the 21-cm EoR signal whose typical coherence-scales is $\sim 0.8$ MHz., Comment: 15 pages, 15 figures, 1 table, Accepted to MNRAS
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

40. Redundant-Baseline Calibration of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array

Author: Dillon, Joshua S., Lee, Max, Ali, Zaki S., Parsons, Aaron R., Orosz, Naomi, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, La Plante, Paul, Beardsley, Adam P., Kern, Nicholas S., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Balfour, Yanga, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Tegmark, Max, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Dillon, Joshua S., Lee, Max, Ali, Zaki S., Parsons, Aaron R., Orosz, Naomi, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, La Plante, Paul, Beardsley, Adam P., Kern, Nicholas S., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Balfour, Yanga, Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steve, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steven R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, Lekalake, Telalo, Lewis, David, Liu, Adrian, Ma, Yin-Zhe, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Pascua, Robert, Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Santos, Mario G., Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Tegmark, Max, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: In 21 cm cosmology, precision calibration is key to the separation of the neutral hydrogen signal from very bright but spectrally-smooth astrophysical foregrounds. The Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), an interferometer specialized for 21 cm cosmology and now under construction in South Africa, was designed to be largely calibrated using the self-consistency of repeated measurements of the same interferometric modes. This technique, known as "redundant-baseline calibration" resolves most of the internal degrees of freedom in the calibration problem. It assumes, however, on antenna elements with identical primary beams placed precisely on a redundant grid. In this work, we review the detailed implementation of the algorithms enabling redundant-baseline calibration and report results with HERA data. We quantify the effects of real-world non-redundancy and how they compare to the idealized scenario in which redundant measurements differ only in their noise realizations. Finally, we study how non-redundancy can produce spurious temporal structure in our calibration solutions--both in data and in simulations--and present strategies for mitigating that structure., Comment: 24 Pages, 19 Figures. Updated to match the accepted MNRAS version
Published: 2020
Full Text: View/download PDF

41. Absolute Calibration Strategies for the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array and Their Impact on the 21 cm Power Spectrum

Author: Kern, Nicholas S., Dillon, Joshua S., Parsons, Aaron R., Carilli, Christopher L., Bernardi, Gianni, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Kern, Nicholas S., Dillon, Joshua S., Parsons, Aaron R., Carilli, Christopher L., Bernardi, Gianni, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: We discuss absolute calibration strategies for Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), which aims to measure the cosmological 21 cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). HERA is a drift-scan array with a 10 degree wide field of view, meaning bright, well-characterized point source transits are scarce. This, combined with HERA's redundant sampling of the uv plane and the modest angular resolution of the Phase I instrument, make traditional sky-based and self-calibration techniques difficult to implement with high dynamic range. Nonetheless, in this work we demonstrate calibration for HERA using point source catalogues and electromagnetic simulations of its primary beam. We show that unmodeled diffuse flux and instrumental contaminants can corrupt the gain solutions, and present a gain smoothing approach for mitigating their impact on the 21 cm power spectrum. We also demonstrate a hybrid sky and redundant calibration scheme and compare it to pure sky-based calibration, showing only a marginal improvement to the gain solutions at intermediate delay scales. Our work suggests that the HERA Phase I system can be well-calibrated for a foreground-avoidance power spectrum estimator by applying direction-independent gains with a small set of degrees of freedom across the frequency and time axes., Comment: Accepted to ApJ
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

42. Mitigating Internal Instrument Coupling II: A Method Demonstration with the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array

Author: Kern, Nicholas S., Parsons, Aaron R., Dillon, Joshua S., Lanman, Adam E., Liu, Adrian, Bull, Philip, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Kern, Nicholas S., Parsons, Aaron R., Dillon, Joshua S., Lanman, Adam E., Liu, Adrian, Bull, Philip, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: We present a study of internal reflection and cross coupling systematics in Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). In a companion paper, we outlined the mathematical formalism for such systematics and presented algorithms for modeling and removing them from the data. In this work, we apply these techniques to data from HERA's first observing season as a method demonstration. The data show evidence for systematics that, without removal, would hinder a detection of the 21 cm power spectrum for the targeted EoR line-of-sight modes in the range 0.2 < k_parallel < 0.5\ h^-1 Mpc. After systematic removal, we find we can recover these modes in the power spectrum down to the integrated noise-floor of a nightly observation, achieving a dynamic range in the EoR window of 10^-6 in power (mK^2 units) with respect to the bright galactic foreground signal. In the absence of other systematics and assuming the systematic suppression demonstrated here continues to lower noise levels, our results suggest that fully-integrated HERA Phase I may have the capacity to set competitive upper limits on the 21 cm power spectrum. For future observing seasons, HERA will have upgraded analog and digital hardware to better control these systematics in the field., Comment: Submitted to ApJ
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

43. A simplified, lossless re-analysis of PAPER-64

Author: Kolopanis, Matthew, Jacobs, Daniel C., Cheng, Carina, Parsons, Aaron R., Kohn, Saul A., Pober, Jonathan C., Aguirre, James E., Ali, Zaki S., Bernardi, Gianni, Bradley, Richard F., Carilli, Christopher L., DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matthew, Dillon, Joshua S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Klima, Patricia, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, Dave, Moore, David F., Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Walbrughp, William, Walker, Andre, Kolopanis, Matthew, Jacobs, Daniel C., Cheng, Carina, Parsons, Aaron R., Kohn, Saul A., Pober, Jonathan C., Aguirre, James E., Ali, Zaki S., Bernardi, Gianni, Bradley, Richard F., Carilli, Christopher L., DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matthew, Dillon, Joshua S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Klima, Patricia, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, Dave, Moore, David F., Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Walbrughp, William, and Walker, Andre
Abstract: We present limits on the 21cm power spectrum from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) using data from the 64 antenna configuration of the Donald C. Backer Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER) analyzed through a power spectrum pipeline independent from previous PAPER analyses. Previously reported results from PAPER have been found to contain significant signal loss (Cheng et al. 2018, arxiv:1810.05175). Several lossy steps from previous PAPER pipelines have not been included in this analysis, namely: delay-based foreground filtering, optimal fringe-rate filtering, and empirical covariance-based estimators. Steps which remain in common with previous analyses include redundant calibration and local sidereal time (LST) binning. The power spectra reported here are effectively the result of applying a linear Fourier transform analysis to the calibrated, LST binned data. This analysis also uses more data than previous publications, including the complete available redshift range of $z \sim 7.5$ to $11$. In previous PAPER analyses, many power spectrum measurements were found to be detections of noncosmological power at levels of significance ranging from two to hundreds of times the theoretical noise. Here, excess power is examined using redundancy between baselines and power spectrum jackknives. The upper limits we find on the 21cm power spectrum from reionization are ($1500$ mK)$^{2}$, ($1900$ mK)$^{2}$, ($280$ mK)$^{2}$, ($200$ mK)$^{2}$, ($380$ mK)$^{2}$, ($300$ mK)$^{2}$ at redshifts $z=10.87,\ 9.93,\ 8.68,\ 8.37,\ 8.13,$ and $7.48$, respectively. For reasons described in Cheng et al. 2018 (arxiv:1810.05175), these limits supersede all previous PAPER results (Ali et al. 2018, arxiv:1502.06016)., Comment: 28 Pages, 17 Pages, Accepted to APJ
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

44. Understanding the HERA Phase I receiver system with simulations and its impact on the detectability of the EoR delay power spectrum

Author: Fagnoni, Nicolas, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, DeBoer, David R., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kim, Honggeun, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Parra, Juan Mena, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, DeBoer, David R., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kim, Honggeun, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Parra, Juan Mena, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: The detection of the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) delay power spectrum using a "foreground avoidance method" highly depends on the instrument chromaticity. The systematic effects induced by the radio-telescope spread the foreground signal in the delay domain, which contaminates the EoR window theoretically observable. Applied to the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), this paper combines detailed electromagnetic and electrical simulations in order to model the chromatic effects of the instrument, and quantify its frequency and time responses. In particular, the effects of the analogue receiver, transmission cables, and mutual coupling are included. These simulations are able to accurately predict the intensity of the reflections occurring in the 150-m cable which links the antenna to the back-end. They also show that electromagnetic waves can propagate from one dish to another one through large sections of the array due to mutual coupling. The simulated system time response is attenuated by a factor $10^{4}$ after a characteristic delay which depends on the size of the array and on the antenna position. Ultimately, the system response is attenuated by a factor $10^{5}$ after 1400 ns because of the reflections in the cable, which corresponds to characterizable ${k_\parallel}$-modes above 0.7 $h\;\rm{Mpc}^{-1}$ at 150 MHz. Thus, this new study shows that the detection of the EoR signal with HERA Phase I will be more challenging than expected. On the other hand, it improves our understanding of the telescope, which is essential to mitigate the instrument chromaticity., Comment: 13 pages, 17 figures - Submitted to MNRAS - 2nd revision
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

45. Optimizing Sparse RFI Prediction using Deep Learning

Author: Kerrigan, Joshua, La Plante, Paul, Kohn, Saul, Pober, Jonathan C., Aguirre, James, Abdurashidova, Zara, Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Estrada, Julia, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Glendenning, Brian, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Gorthi, Deepthi, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Kerrigan, Joshua, La Plante, Paul, Kohn, Saul, Pober, Jonathan C., Aguirre, James, Abdurashidova, Zara, Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Estrada, Julia, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Glendenning, Brian, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Gorthi, Deepthi, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is an ever-present limiting factor among radio telescopes even in the most remote observing locations. When looking to retain the maximum amount of sensitivity and reduce contamination for Epoch of Reionization studies, the identification and removal of RFI is especially important. In addition to improved RFI identification, we must also take into account computational efficiency of the RFI-Identification algorithm as radio interferometer arrays such as the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array grow larger in number of receivers. To address this, we present a Deep Fully Convolutional Neural Network (DFCN) that is comprehensive in its use of interferometric data, where both amplitude and phase information are used jointly for identifying RFI. We train the network using simulated HERA visibilities containing mock RFI, yielding a known "ground truth" dataset for evaluating the accuracy of various RFI algorithms. Evaluation of the DFCN model is performed on observations from the 67 dish build-out, HERA-67, and achieves a data throughput of 1.6$\times 10^{5}$ HERA time-ordered 1024 channeled visibilities per hour per GPU. We determine that relative to an amplitude only network including visibility phase adds important adjacent time-frequency context which increases discrimination between RFI and Non-RFI. The inclusion of phase when predicting achieves a Recall of 0.81, Precision of 0.58, and $F_{2}$ score of 0.75 as applied to our HERA-67 observations., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

46. Optimizing Sparse RFI Prediction using Deep Learning

Author: Kerrigan, Joshua, La Plante, Paul, Kohn, Saul, Pober, Jonathan C., Aguirre, James, Abdurashidova, Zara, Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Estrada, Julia, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Glendenning, Brian, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Gorthi, Deepthi, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Kerrigan, Joshua, La Plante, Paul, Kohn, Saul, Pober, Jonathan C., Aguirre, James, Abdurashidova, Zara, Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Dillon, Joshua S., Estrada, Julia, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Glendenning, Brian, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Gorthi, Deepthi, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is an ever-present limiting factor among radio telescopes even in the most remote observing locations. When looking to retain the maximum amount of sensitivity and reduce contamination for Epoch of Reionization studies, the identification and removal of RFI is especially important. In addition to improved RFI identification, we must also take into account computational efficiency of the RFI-Identification algorithm as radio interferometer arrays such as the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array grow larger in number of receivers. To address this, we present a Deep Fully Convolutional Neural Network (DFCN) that is comprehensive in its use of interferometric data, where both amplitude and phase information are used jointly for identifying RFI. We train the network using simulated HERA visibilities containing mock RFI, yielding a known "ground truth" dataset for evaluating the accuracy of various RFI algorithms. Evaluation of the DFCN model is performed on observations from the 67 dish build-out, HERA-67, and achieves a data throughput of 1.6$\times 10^{5}$ HERA time-ordered 1024 channeled visibilities per hour per GPU. We determine that relative to an amplitude only network including visibility phase adds important adjacent time-frequency context which increases discrimination between RFI and Non-RFI. The inclusion of phase when predicting achieves a Recall of 0.81, Precision of 0.58, and $F_{2}$ score of 0.75 as applied to our HERA-67 observations., Comment: 11 pages, 7 figures
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

47. Absolute Calibration Strategies for the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array and Their Impact on the 21 cm Power Spectrum

Author: Kern, Nicholas S., Dillon, Joshua S., Parsons, Aaron R., Carilli, Christopher L., Bernardi, Gianni, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Kern, Nicholas S., Dillon, Joshua S., Parsons, Aaron R., Carilli, Christopher L., Bernardi, Gianni, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Philip, Burba, Jacob, Carey, Steven, Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Ely, John, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta D., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: We discuss absolute calibration strategies for Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), which aims to measure the cosmological 21 cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). HERA is a drift-scan array with a 10 degree wide field of view, meaning bright, well-characterized point source transits are scarce. This, combined with HERA's redundant sampling of the uv plane and the modest angular resolution of the Phase I instrument, make traditional sky-based and self-calibration techniques difficult to implement with high dynamic range. Nonetheless, in this work we demonstrate calibration for HERA using point source catalogues and electromagnetic simulations of its primary beam. We show that unmodeled diffuse flux and instrumental contaminants can corrupt the gain solutions, and present a gain smoothing approach for mitigating their impact on the 21 cm power spectrum. We also demonstrate a hybrid sky and redundant calibration scheme and compare it to pure sky-based calibration, showing only a marginal improvement to the gain solutions at intermediate delay scales. Our work suggests that the HERA Phase I system can be well-calibrated for a foreground-avoidance power spectrum estimator by applying direction-independent gains with a small set of degrees of freedom across the frequency and time axes., Comment: Accepted to ApJ
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

48. Mitigating Internal Instrument Coupling II: A Method Demonstration with the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array

Author: Kern, Nicholas S., Parsons, Aaron R., Dillon, Joshua S., Lanman, Adam E., Liu, Adrian, Bull, Philip, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Kern, Nicholas S., Parsons, Aaron R., Dillon, Joshua S., Lanman, Adam E., Liu, Adrian, Bull, Philip, Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Burba, Jacob, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matt, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Julius, Austin, Kerrigan, Joshua, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Murray, Steven G., Neben, Abraham R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Ringuette, Jon, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: We present a study of internal reflection and cross coupling systematics in Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). In a companion paper, we outlined the mathematical formalism for such systematics and presented algorithms for modeling and removing them from the data. In this work, we apply these techniques to data from HERA's first observing season as a method demonstration. The data show evidence for systematics that, without removal, would hinder a detection of the 21 cm power spectrum for the targeted EoR line-of-sight modes in the range 0.2 < k_parallel < 0.5\ h^-1 Mpc. After systematic removal, we find we can recover these modes in the power spectrum down to the integrated noise-floor of a nightly observation, achieving a dynamic range in the EoR window of 10^-6 in power (mK^2 units) with respect to the bright galactic foreground signal. In the absence of other systematics and assuming the systematic suppression demonstrated here continues to lower noise levels, our results suggest that fully-integrated HERA Phase I may have the capacity to set competitive upper limits on the 21 cm power spectrum. For future observing seasons, HERA will have upgraded analog and digital hardware to better control these systematics in the field., Comment: Submitted to ApJ
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

49. A simplified, lossless re-analysis of PAPER-64

Author: Kolopanis, Matthew, Jacobs, Daniel C., Cheng, Carina, Parsons, Aaron R., Kohn, Saul A., Pober, Jonathan C., Aguirre, James E., Ali, Zaki S., Bernardi, Gianni, Bradley, Richard F., Carilli, Christopher L., DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matthew, Dillon, Joshua S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Klima, Patricia, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, Dave, Moore, David F., Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Walbrughp, William, Walker, Andre, Kolopanis, Matthew, Jacobs, Daniel C., Cheng, Carina, Parsons, Aaron R., Kohn, Saul A., Pober, Jonathan C., Aguirre, James E., Ali, Zaki S., Bernardi, Gianni, Bradley, Richard F., Carilli, Christopher L., DeBoer, David R., Dexter, Matthew, Dillon, Joshua S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Klima, Patricia, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, Dave, Moore, David F., Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Nunhokee, Chuneeta Devi, Walbrughp, William, and Walker, Andre
Abstract: We present limits on the 21cm power spectrum from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) using data from the 64 antenna configuration of the Donald C. Backer Precision Array for Probing the Epoch of Reionization (PAPER) analyzed through a power spectrum pipeline independent from previous PAPER analyses. Previously reported results from PAPER have been found to contain significant signal loss (Cheng et al. 2018, arxiv:1810.05175). Several lossy steps from previous PAPER pipelines have not been included in this analysis, namely: delay-based foreground filtering, optimal fringe-rate filtering, and empirical covariance-based estimators. Steps which remain in common with previous analyses include redundant calibration and local sidereal time (LST) binning. The power spectra reported here are effectively the result of applying a linear Fourier transform analysis to the calibrated, LST binned data. This analysis also uses more data than previous publications, including the complete available redshift range of $z \sim 7.5$ to $11$. In previous PAPER analyses, many power spectrum measurements were found to be detections of noncosmological power at levels of significance ranging from two to hundreds of times the theoretical noise. Here, excess power is examined using redundancy between baselines and power spectrum jackknives. The upper limits we find on the 21cm power spectrum from reionization are ($1500$ mK)$^{2}$, ($1900$ mK)$^{2}$, ($280$ mK)$^{2}$, ($200$ mK)$^{2}$, ($380$ mK)$^{2}$, ($300$ mK)$^{2}$ at redshifts $z=10.87,\ 9.93,\ 8.68,\ 8.37,\ 8.13,$ and $7.48$, respectively. For reasons described in Cheng et al. 2018 (arxiv:1810.05175), these limits supersede all previous PAPER results (Ali et al. 2018, arxiv:1502.06016)., Comment: 28 Pages, 17 Pages, Accepted to APJ
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

50. Understanding the HERA Phase I receiver system with simulations and its impact on the detectability of the EoR delay power spectrum

Author: Fagnoni, Nicolas, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, DeBoer, David R., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kim, Honggeun, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Parra, Juan Mena, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., Zheng, Haoxuan, Fagnoni, Nicolas, Acedo, Eloy de Lera, DeBoer, David R., Abdurashidova, Zara, Aguirre, James E., Alexander, Paul, Ali, Zaki S., Balfour, Yanga, Beardsley, Adam P., Bernardi, Gianni, Billings, Tashalee S., Bowman, Judd D., Bradley, Richard F., Bull, Phil, Burba, Jacob, Carilli, Chris L., Cheng, Carina, Dexter, Matt, Dillon, Joshua S., Ewall-Wice, Aaron, Fritz, Randall, Furlanetto, Steve R., Gale-Sides, Kingsley, Glendenning, Brian, Gorthi, Deepthi, Greig, Bradley, Grobbelaar, Jasper, Halday, Ziyaad, Hazelton, Bryna J., Hewitt, Jacqueline N., Hickish, Jack, Jacobs, Daniel C., Josaitis, Alec, Julius, Austin, Kern, Nicholas S., Kerrigan, Joshua, Kim, Honggeun, Kittiwisit, Piyanat, Kohn, Saul A., Kolopanis, Matthew, Lanman, Adam, La Plante, Paul, Lekalake, Telalo, Liu, Adrian, MacMahon, David, Malan, Lourence, Malgas, Cresshim, Maree, Matthys, Martinot, Zachary E., Matsetela, Eunice, Parra, Juan Mena, Mesinger, Andrei, Molewa, Mathakane, Morales, Miguel F., Mosiane, Tshegofalang, Neben, Abraham R., Nikolic, Bojan, Parsons, Aaron R., Patra, Nipanjana, Pieterse, Samantha, Pober, Jonathan C., Razavi-Ghods, Nima, Robnett, James, Rosie, Kathryn, Sims, Peter, Smith, Craig, Syce, Angelo, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Williams, Peter K. G., and Zheng, Haoxuan
Abstract: The detection of the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) delay power spectrum using a "foreground avoidance method" highly depends on the instrument chromaticity. The systematic effects induced by the radio-telescope spread the foreground signal in the delay domain, which contaminates the EoR window theoretically observable. Applied to the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), this paper combines detailed electromagnetic and electrical simulations in order to model the chromatic effects of the instrument, and quantify its frequency and time responses. In particular, the effects of the analogue receiver, transmission cables, and mutual coupling are included. These simulations are able to accurately predict the intensity of the reflections occurring in the 150-m cable which links the antenna to the back-end. They also show that electromagnetic waves can propagate from one dish to another one through large sections of the array due to mutual coupling. The simulated system time response is attenuated by a factor $10^{4}$ after a characteristic delay which depends on the size of the array and on the antenna position. Ultimately, the system response is attenuated by a factor $10^{5}$ after 1400 ns because of the reflections in the cable, which corresponds to characterizable ${k_\parallel}$-modes above 0.7 $h\;\rm{Mpc}^{-1}$ at 150 MHz. Thus, this new study shows that the detection of the EoR signal with HERA Phase I will be more challenging than expected. On the other hand, it improves our understanding of the telescope, which is essential to mitigate the instrument chromaticity., Comment: 13 pages, 17 figures - Submitted to MNRAS - 2nd revision
Published: 2019
Full Text: View/download PDF

Catalog

Books, media, physical & digital resources

See catalog results

Searchworks

Select search scope, currently: Articles Catalog books, media & more in Jio Institute collections Articles journal articles & other e-resources

Search

Search Constraints

Refine your results

Search Limiters

Publication Year Range

Publication Type

Database

Publisher

84 results on '"Cheng, Carina"'

Search Results

Catalog

Select search scope, currently: Articles

Catalog

books, media & more in Jio Institute collections

Articles

journal articles & other e-resources