A Detection of Cosmological 21 cm Emission from CHIME in Cross-correlation with eBOSS Measurements of the Lyman-$α$ Forest

Kavli Affiliate: Kiyoshi Masui

| First 5 Authors: CHIME Collaboration, Mandana Amiri, Kevin Bandura, Arnab Chakraborty, Matt Dobbs

| Summary:

We report the detection of 21 cm emission at an average redshift $bar{z} =
2.3$ in the cross-correlation of data from the Canadian Hydrogen Intensity
Mapping Experiment (CHIME) with measurements of the Lyman-$alpha$ forest from
eBOSS. Data collected by CHIME over 88 days in the $400-500$~MHz frequency band
($1.8 < z < 2.5$) are formed into maps of the sky and high-pass delay filtered
to suppress the foreground power, corresponding to removing cosmological scales
with $k_parallel lesssim 0.13 text{Mpc}^{-1}$ at the average redshift.
Line-of-sight spectra to the eBOSS background quasar locations are extracted
from the CHIME maps and combined with the Lyman-$alpha$ forest flux
transmission spectra to estimate the 21 cm-Lyman-$alpha$ cross-correlation
function. Fitting a simulation-derived template function to this measurement
results in a $9sigma$ detection significance. The coherent accumulation of the
signal through cross-correlation is sufficient to enable a detection despite
excess variance from foreground residuals $sim6-10$ times brighter than the
expected thermal noise level in the correlation function. These results are the
highest-redshift measurement of tcm emission to date, and set the stage for
future 21 cm intensity mapping analyses at $z>1.8$.

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