Cosmology with the Highly Redshifted 21cm Line

Kavli Affiliate: Jacqueline Hewitt

| First 5 Authors: Adrian Liu, James Aguirre, Yacine Ali-Haimoud, Marcelo Alvarez, Adam Beardsley

| Summary:

In addition to being a probe of Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionization
astrophysics, the 21cm line at $z>6$ is also a powerful way to constrain
cosmology. Its power derives from several unique capabilities. First, the 21cm
line is sensitive to energy injections into the intergalactic medium at high
redshifts. It also increases the number of measurable modes compared to
existing cosmological probes by orders of magnitude. Many of these modes are on
smaller scales than are accessible via the CMB, and moreover have the advantage
of being firmly in the linear regime (making them easy to model theoretically).
Finally, the 21cm line provides access to redshifts prior to the formation of
luminous objects. Together, these features of 21cm cosmology at $z>6$ provide
multiple pathways toward precise cosmological constraints. These include the
"marginalizing out" of astrophysical effects, the utilization of redshift space
distortions, the breaking of CMB degeneracies, the identification of signatures
of relative velocities between baryons and dark matter, and the discovery of
unexpected signs of physics beyond the $Lambda$CDM paradigm at high redshifts.

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