Search

The dark age of the universe, when no luminous object had existed, ended with the birth of the first stars, galaxies, and blackholes. This epoch is called cosmic dawn. Cosmic reionization is the major transition of the intergalactic medium (IGM) in the universe driven by ionizing photons emitted from luminous objects. Although the epoch through the dark age to reionization is a milestone in the universe, our knowledge of this epoch has not been sufficient yet. Cosmic 21cm signal, which is emitted from neutral hydrogen, is expected to open a new window for this epoch. In this review paper, we first introduce the basic physics of the 21cm line and how first stars impact on the 21cm line signal. Next, we briefly summarize how we extract astrophysical information from the 21cm line signal by means of statistical and machine learning approaches. We also discuss the synergy between the 21cm line signal and other emission lines. Finally, we summarize the current status of 21cm experiments., 30 pages, 19 figures. Published in PASJ as Special Issue "Metre and Centimetre Radio Astronomy in the Next Decade"

Ultracompact minihalos~(UCMHs) can form after the epoch of matter-radiation equality, if the density fluctuations of dark matter have significantly large amplitude on small scales. The constraint on the UCMH abundance allows us to access such small-scale fluctuations. In this paper, we present that, through the measurement of 21-cm fluctuations before the epoch of reionization~ we can obtain a constraint on the UCMH abundance. We calculate the 21-cm signal from UCMHs and show that UCMHs provide the enhancement of the 21-cm fluctuations. We also investigate the constraint on the UCMH abundance and small-scale curvature perturbations. Our results indicate that the upcoming 21-cm observation, the Square Kilometre Array (SKA), provides the constraint on amplitude of primordial curvature power spectrum, ${\cal A}_{\zeta} \lesssim 10^{-6}$ on $100~{\rm Mpc}^{-1} \lesssim k \lesssim 1000~{\rm Mpc}^{-1}$. Although it is not stronger than the one from the non-detection of gamma rays induced by dark matter annihilation in UCMHs, the constraint by the SKA will be important because this constraint is independent of the dark matter particle model., Comment: 8pages, 6 figures, published in MNRAS

Detecting $\rm H_I$ 21cm line in the intergalactic medium (IGM) during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) suffers from foreground contamination such as Galactic synchrotron and extragalactic radio sources. Cross-correlation between the 21cm line and Lyman-$\alpha$ emitter (LAE) galaxies is a powerful tool to identify the 21cm signal since the 21cm line emission has correlation with LAEs while the LAEs are statistically independent of the foregrounds. So far, the detectability of 21cm-LAE cross-power spectrum has been investigated with simple LAE models where the observed Ly$\alpha$ luminosity is proportional to the dark matter halo mass. However, the previous models were inconsistent with the latest observational data of LAEs obtained with Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC). Here, we revisit the detectability of 21cm-LAE cross-power spectrum adopting a state-of-the-art LAE model consistent with all Subaru/HSC observations such as the Ly$\alpha$ luminosity function, LAE angular auto-correlation, and the LAE fractions in the continuum selected galaxies. We find that resultant cross-power spectrum with the updated LAE model is reduced at small scales ($k\sim 1\ \rm Mpc^{-1}$) compared to the simple models, while the amplitudes at large scales ($k \lesssim 0.2 \ \rm Mpc^{-1}$) are not affected so much. We conclude that the large-scale signal would be detectable with Square Kilometre Array (SKA) and HSC LAE cross-correlation but detecting the small scale signal would require an extended HSC LAE survey with an area of $\sim 75\ \rm deg^2$ or 3000 hrs observation time of 21cm line with SKA., Comment: 11 pages, 10 figures, accepted to Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society

We investigate the distribution of metals in the cosmological volume at $z\sim3$, in particular, provided by massive population III (Pop III) stars using a cosmological $N$-body simulation in which a model of Pop III star formation is implemented. Owing to the simulation, we can choose minihaloes where Pop III star formation occurs at $z>10$ and obtain the spatial distribution of the metals at lower-redshifts. To evaluate the amount of heavy elements provided by Pop III stars, we consider metal yield of pair-instability or core-collapse supernovae (SNe) explosions of massive stars. By comparing our results to the Illustris-1 simulation, we find that heavy elements provided by Pop III stars often dominate those from galaxies in low density regions. The median value of the volume averaged metallicity is $Z\sim 10^{-4.5 - -2} Z_{\odot}$ at the regions. Spectroscopic observations with the next generation telescopes are expected to detect the metals imprinted on quasar spectra., 10 pages, 8 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We report fourteen and twenty-eight protocluster candidates at z = 5.7 and 6.6 over 14 and 19 deg2 areas, respectively, selected from 2,230 Lyα emitters (LAEs) photometrically identified with Subaru/Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC) deep images. Six out of the 42 protocluster candidates include at least 1 spectroscopically confirmed LAEs at redshifts up to z = 6.574. By the comparisons with the cosmological Lyα radiative transfer (RT) model reproducing LAEs with the reionization effects, we find that more than a half of these protocluster candidates might be progenitors of the present-day clusters with a mass of ≳ 1014M⊙. We also investigate the correlation between LAE overdensity and Lya rest-frame equivalent width (EW), because the cosmological Lyα RT model suggests that a slope of EW-overdensity relation is steepened towards the epoch of cosmic reionization (EoR), due to the existence of the ionized bubbles around galaxy overdensities easing the escape of Lyα emission from the partly neutral intergalactic medium. The available HSC data suggest that the slope of the EW-overdensity correlation does not evolve from the post-reionization epoch z = 5.7 to the EoR z = 6.6 beyond the moderately large statistical errors.

We measure the scale dependence and redshift dependence of 21 cm line emitted from the neutral hydrogen gas at redshift 13 on scales of k>1h/Mpc, but it is roughly constant at lower redshift z, Comment: 10 pages, 6 figures, submitted to MNRAS

Cosmic Reionization imprints its signature on the temperature and polarization anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background (CMB). Advances in CMB telescopes have already placed a significant constraint on the history of reionization. As near-future CMB telescopes target the maximum sensitivity, or observations limited only by the cosmic variance (CV), we hereby forecast the potential of future CMB observations in constraining the history of reionization. In this study, we perform Markov Chain Monte Carlo analysis for CV-limited E-mode polarization observations such as the LiteBIRD (Light satellite for the studies of B-mode polarization and Inflation from cosmic background Radiation Detection), based on a few different methods that vary in the way of sampling reionization histories. We focus especially on estimating the very early history of reionization that occurs at redshifts $z>15$, which is quantified by the partial CMB optical depth due to free electrons at $z>15$, $τ_{z>15}$. We find that reionization with $τ_{z>15} \sim 0.008$, which are well below the current upper limit $τ_{z>15} \sim 0.02$, are achievable by reionization models with minihalo domination in the early phase and can be distinguished from those with $τ_{z>15} \lesssim 5\times 10^{-4}$ through CV-limited CMB polarization observations. An accurate estimation of $τ_{z>15}$, however, remains somewhat elusive. We investigate whether resampling the E-mode polarization data with limited spherical-harmonic modes may resolve this shortcoming., 13 pages, 18figures

Current attempts to measure the 21cm Power Spectrum of neutral hydrogen during the Epoch of Reionization are limited by systematics which produce measured upper limits above both the thermal noise and the expected cosmological signal. These systematics arise from a combination of observational, instrumental, and analysis effects. In order to further understand and mitigate these effects, it is instructive to explore different aspects of existing datasets. One such aspect is the choice of observing field. To date, MWA EoR observations have largely focused on the EoR0 field. In this work, we present a new detailed analysis of the EoR1 field. The EoR1 field is one of the coldest regions of the Southern radio sky, but contains the very bright radio galaxy Fornax-A. The presence of this bright extended source in the primary beam of the interferometer makes the calibration and analysis of EoR1 particularly challenging. We demonstrate the effectiveness of a recently developed shapelet model of Fornax-A in improving the results from this field. We also describe and apply a series of data quality metrics which identify and remove systematically contaminated data. With substantially improved source models, upgraded analysis algorithms and enhanced data quality metrics, we determine EoR power spectrum upper limits based on analysis of the best $\sim$14-hours data observed during 2015 and 2014 at redshifts 6.5, 6.8 and 7.1, with the lowest $2\sigma$ upper limit at z=6.5 of $\Delta^2 \leq (73.78 ~\mathrm{mK)^2}$ at $k=0.13~\mathrm{h~ Mpc^{-1}}$, improving on previous EoR1 measurement results., Comment: 18 pages, 17 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Theoretically modelling the 21-cm signals caused by Population III stars (Pop III stars) is the key to extracting fruitful information on Pop III stars from current and forthcoming 21-cm observations. In this work we develop a new module of Pop III stars in which the escape fractions of ionizing photons and Lyman-Werner (LW) photons, photo-heating by UV radiation, and LW feedback are consistently incorporated. By implementing the module into a public 21-cm semi-numerical simulation code, 21CMFAST, we demonstrate 21-cm signal calculations and investigate the importance of Pop III star modelling. What we find is that the contribution from Pop III stars to cosmic reionization significantly depends on the treatment of the escape fraction. With our escape fraction model, Pop III stars hardly contribute to reionization because less massive halos, whose escape fraction are high, cannot host Pop III stars due to LW feedback. On the other hand, Pop III stars well contribute to reionization with the conventional constant escape fraction. We also find that UV photo-heating has non-negligible impact on the 21-cm global signal and the 21-cm power spectrum if the ionization fraction of the Universe is higher than roughly 1 percent. In this case, the strength of the 21-cm global signal depends on the photo-heating efficiency and thus on the Pop III star mass. We conclude that detailed modelling of Pop III stars is imperative to predict 21-cm observables accurately for future observations., 9 pages, 8 figures, submitted to MNRAS

The radio observation of 21\,cm-line signal from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) enables us to explore the evolution of galaxies and intergalactic medium in the early universe. However, the detection and imaging of the 21\,cm-line signal are tough due to the foreground and instrumental systematics. In order to overcome these obstacles, as a new approach, we propose to take a cross correlation between observed 21\,cm-line data and 21\,cm-line images generated from the distribution of the Lyman-$\alpha$ emitters (LAEs) through machine learning. In order to create 21\,cm-line maps from LAE distribution, we apply conditional Generative Adversarial Network (cGAN) trained with the results of our numerical simulations. We find that the 21\,cm-line brightness temperature maps and the neutral fraction maps can be reproduced with correlation function of 0.5 at large scales $k, Comment: 16 pages, 12 figures, 4 tables, revised version

Precise instrumental calibration is of crucial importance to 21-cm cosmology experiments. The Murchison Widefield Array's (MWA) Phase II compact configuration offers us opportunities for both redundant calibration and sky-based calibration algorithms; using the two in tandem is a potential approach to mitigate calibration errors caused by inaccurate sky models. The MWA Epoch of Reionization (EoR) experiment targets three patches of the sky (dubbed EoR0, EoR1, and EoR2) with deep observations. Previous work in \cite{Li_2018} and \cite{Wenyang_2019} studied the effect of tandem calibration on the EoR0 field and found that it yielded no significant improvement in the power spectrum over sky-based calibration alone. In this work, we apply similar techniques to the EoR1 field and find a distinct result: the improvements in the power spectrum from tandem calibration are significant. To understand this result, we analyze both the calibration solutions themselves and the effects on the power spectrum over three nights of EoR1 observations. We conclude that the presence of the bright radio galaxy Fornax A in EoR1 degrades the performance of sky-based calibration, which in turn enables redundant calibration to have a larger impact. These results suggest that redundant calibration can indeed mitigate some level of model-incompleteness error., Comment: 20 pages, 11 figures, accepted for publication in PASA

O refinar de propriedades das proteínas, através de mutações pontuais sobre seus aminoácidos é uma prática muito comum utilizada em processos da indústria bioquímica. Métodos computacionais acurados são necessários para realizar a predição sobre esses experimentos de mutações, tornando o design de proteínas mais eficiente. Por meio de bases de dados provenientes do Protherm, onde cada instância inclui dados numéricos,como variação da energia livre de Gibbs, mudança de entalpia, mudança de capacidade térmica, temperatura de transição, entre outros, são informações importantes para a compreensão da estabilidade da proteína. As predições do efeito da mutação na estrutura da proteína medido pela variação da variação da energia de Gibbs (ddG) são divididas entre duas classes, estabilizante e desestabilizante, onde algoritmos de classificação e ensemble de classificadores, disponibilizados pelo software Weka, terão a função de determinar a acurácia dos modelos de predição. Através de três experimentos, que são diferenciados pelo pré-processamento dos dados de entrada para os modelos de predição, é avaliado o comportamento dos das predições cada ferramenta, proporcionando uma discussão de como a bioinformática pode se beneficiar desses resultados e como os modelos de predição criados podem predizer o impacto de mutações pontuais na estrutura de proteínas. The refining of protein properties, through point mutations on their amino acids, is avery common practice used in biochemical industry processes. Accurate computational methods are required to carry out the prediction on these mutation experiments, making protein design more efficient. Through databases from Protherm, where each instance in-cludes numerical data, such as Gibbs free energy variation, enthalpy change, thermal ca-pacity change, transition temperature, among others, are important for the understanding of protein stabilization. The predictions will be divided between two classes, stabilizing and destabilizing, where algorithms for classification and ensemble classifiers, available on the Weka software, have the objective to determine the accuracy of the prediction models. By making use of three experiments, that are unique in the way of data inputpre-processing for the prediction models, it is evaluated the prediction behavior of each tool, providing a discussion on how bioinformatics can benefit from these results and how the created predicting models can predict the impact of point mutations on the structure of proteins.

Cross-correlation between the redshifted 21 cm signal and Lyman-{\alpha} emitters (LAEs) is powerful tool to probe the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). Although the cross-power spectrum (PS) has an advantage of not correlating with foregrounds much brighter than the 21 cm signal, the galactic and extra-galactic foregrounds prevent detection since they contribute to the variance of the cross PS. Therefore, strategies for mitigating foregrounds are required. In this work, we study the impact of foreground avoidance on the measurement of the 21 cm-LAE cross-correlation. We then simulate the 21 cm observation as observed by the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). The point source foreground is modelled from the GaLactic and Extragalactic All-sky Murchison Widefield Array (GLEAM) survey catalogue, and the diffuse foreground is evaluated using a parametric model. For LAE observations, we assume a large survey of the Subaru Hyper Supreme-Cam (HSC), with spectroscopic observations of the Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS). To predict the 21 cm signal, we employ a numerical simulation combining post processed radiative transfer and radiation hydrodynamics. Using these models, the signal-to-noise ratio of 2D PS shows the foreground contamination dominates the error of cross-PS even in the so-called `EoR window'. We find that at least 99% of the point source foreground and 80% of the galactic diffuse foreground must be removed to measure the EoR signal at large scales $k, Comment: 10 pages, 9 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRAS

Understanding Ly$\alpha$ emitting galaxies (LAEs) can be a key to reveal cosmic reionization and galaxy formation in the early Universe. Based on halo merger trees and Ly$\alpha$ radiation transfer calculations, we model redshift evolution of LAEs and their observational properties at $z \ge 6$. We consider ionized bubbles associated with individual LAEs and IGM transmission of Ly$\alpha$ photons. We find that Ly$\alpha$ luminosity tightly correlates with halo mass and stellar mass, while the relation with star formation rate has a large dispersion. Comparing our models with the observed luminosity function by Konno et al., we suggest that LAEs at $z \sim 7$ have galactic wind of $V_{\rm out} \gtrsim 100~\rm km\, s^{-1}$ and HI column density of $N_{\rm HI} \gtrsim 10^{20}~\rm cm^{-2}$. Number density of bright LAEs rapidly decreases as redshift increases, due to both lower star formation rate and smaller HII bubbles. Our model predicts future wide deep surveys with next generation telescopes, such as JWST, E-ELT and TMT, can detect LAEs at $z \sim 10$ with a number density of $n_{\rm LAE} \sim {\rm a~few~} \times10^{-6} ~\rm Mpc^{-3}$ for the flux sensitivity of $10^{-18} ~\rm erg\, cm^{-2}\, s^{-1}$. By combining these surveys with future 21-cm observations, it could be possible to detect both LAEs with $L_{Ly\alpha} \gtrsim 10^{42}~\rm erg~s^{-1}$ and their associated giant HII bubbles with the size $\gtrsim 250 ~\rm kpc$ at $z \sim 10$., Comment: 17 pages, 13 figures, submitted to MNRAS

The Lyman continuum (LyC) escape fraction is a key quantity to determine the contribution of galaxies to cosmic reionization. It has been known that the escape fractions estimated by observations and numerical simulations show a large diversity. However, the origins of the diversity are still uncertain. In this work, to understand what quantities of galaxies are responsible for controlling the escape fraction, we numerically evaluate the escape fraction by performing ray-tracing calculation with simplified disc galaxy models. With a smooth disc model, we explore the dependence of the escape fraction on the disposition of ionizing sources, and find that the escape fraction varies up to $\sim 3$ orders of magnitude. It is also found that the halo mass dependence of disc scale height determines whether the escape fraction increases or decreases with halo mass. With a clumpy disc model, it turns out that the escape fraction increases as the clump mass fraction increases because the density in the inter-clump region decreases. In addition, we find that clumpiness regulates the escape fraction via two ways when the total clump mass dominates the total gas mass; the escape fraction is controlled by the covering factor of clumps if the clumps are dense sufficient to block LyC photons, otherwise the clumpiness works to reduce the escape fraction by increasing the total number of recombination events in a galaxy., 14 pages, 14 figures, 1 table

We explore the possibility of the formation of globular clusters under ultraviolet (UV) background radiation. One-dimensional spherical symmetric radiation hydrodynamics (RHD) simulations by Hasegawa et al. have demonstrated that the collapse of low-mass (10^6-10^7 solar masses) gas clouds exposed to intense UV radiation can lead to the formation of compact star clusters like globular clusters (GCs) if gas clouds contract with supersonic infall velocities. However, three-dimensional effects, such as the anisotropy of background radiation and the inhomogeneity in gas clouds, have not been studied so far. In this paper, we perform three-dimensional RHD simulations in a semi-cosmological context, and reconsider the formation of compact star clusters in strong UV radiation fields. As a result, we find that although anisotropic radiation fields bring an elongated shadow of neutral gas, almost spherical compact star clusters can be procreated from a "supersonic infall" cloud, since photo-dissociating radiation suppresses the formation of hydrogen molecules in the shadowed regions and the regions are compressed by UV heated ambient gas. The properties of resultant star clusters match those of GCs. On the other hand, in weak UV radiation fields, dark matter-dominated star clusters with low stellar density form due to the self-shielding effect as well as the positive feedback by ionizing photons. Thus, we conclude that the "supersonic infall" under a strong UV background is a potential mechanism to form GCs., 16 pages, 12 figures, 3 tables, accepted for publication in MNRAS

Reducing radiation exposure is a very important issue in interventional cardiology techniques such as percutaneous coronary intervention. Although novel techniques to reduce radiation exposure are valuable, we should also reconsider older techniques. Digital zoom has been available in Japan from 2005. Digital zoom enlarges an 8-inch field of view (FOV) by 1.2 times, allowing visualization of a 6.7-inch FOV without FOV switching. We identified 2101 suitable cases of percutaneous intervention (PCI) and divided them into two groups according to the use of digital zoom; 1195 patients were included in the digital zoom group and 906 patients in the conventional group. We collected data regarding the reference air kerma (RAK) and dose-area product (DAP). We calculated RAK and DAP per minute fluoroscope time (RAK/min, DAP/min, respectively). There were intergroup differences in RAK, DAP, RAK/min, and DAP/min (digital zoom group vs conventional group; RAK, 1590 mGy [990–2410] vs 1850 [1220–2720], p

We explore methods for robust estimation of the 21 cm signal from the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR). A Kernel Density Estimator (KDE) is introduced for measuring the spatial temperature fluctuation power spectrum from the EoR. The KDE estimates the underlying probability distribution function of fluctuations as a function of spatial scale, and contains different systematic biases and errors to the typical approach to estimating the fluctuation power spectrum. Extraction of histograms of visibilities allows moments analysis to be used to discriminate foregrounds from 21 cm signal and thermal noise. We use the information available in the histograms, along with the statistical dis-similarity of foregrounds from two independent observing fields, to robustly separate foregrounds from cosmological signal, while making no assumptions about the Gaussianity of the signal. Using two independent observing fields to robustly discriminate signal from foregrounds is crucial for the analysis presented in this paper. We apply the techniques to 13 hours of Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) EoR data over two observing fields. We compare the output to that obtained with a comparative power spectrum estimation method, and demonstrate the reduced foreground contamination using this approach. Using the second moment obtained directly from the KDE distribution functions yields a factor of 2-3 improvement in power for k < 0.3hMpc^{-1} compared with a matched delay space power estimator, while weighting data by additional statistics does not offer significant improvement beyond that available for thermal noise-only weights., 19 pages, 18 figures, accepted for publication in MNRAS

We apply two methods to estimate the 21~cm bispectrum from data taken within the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR) project of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA). Using data acquired with the Phase II compact array allows a direct bispectrum estimate to be undertaken on the multiple redundantly-spaced triangles of antenna tiles, as well as an estimate based on data gridded to the $uv$-plane. The direct and gridded bispectrum estimators are applied to 21 hours of high-band (167--197~MHz; $z$=6.2--7.5) data from the 2016 and 2017 observing seasons. Analytic predictions for the bispectrum bias and variance for point source foregrounds are derived. We compare the output of these approaches, the foreground contribution to the signal, and future prospects for measuring the bispectra with redundant and non-redundant arrays. We find that some triangle configurations yield bispectrum estimates that are consistent with the expected noise level after 10 hours, while equilateral configurations are strongly foreground-dominated. Careful choice of triangle configurations may be made to reduce foreground bias that hinders power spectrum estimators, and the 21~cm bispectrum may be accessible in less time than the 21~cm power spectrum for some wave modes, with detections in hundreds of hours., Comment: 19 pages, 10 figures, accepted for publication in PASA