wv governor’s school lecture

A True Story of Astronomy in the Desert

Nicole Gugliucci

for the PAPER Team

PAPER is a UVa/Berkeley/NRAO/UPenn/SKA-SA Production

Why do radio astronomers hide from people?

3 September 2008 N. Gugliucci – CAS 7

The new [epoch of reionization] map may carry more information than even the cosmic microwave background radiation.- Avi Loeb, Scientific American, Nov. 06

We are looking to see the signal of the neutral hydrogen during reionization.

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http://people.su.se/~gmell/lib/exe/fetch.php?cache=cache&media=xy_100mpc_406.gif GarreltMellema

http://people.su.se/~gmell/lib/exe/fetch.php?cache=cache&media=xy_100mpc_406.gif



Z=9 or556 million yrsafter BB




by Trac&Cen (2007)

Signal vs. Foregrounds at 140 MHz

EoR

CMB

MW synchrotron

(Multipole Moment)

(Po

wer

)

Seeing in the Dark

The 21 cm or 1.4 GHz transition marks a protected band for radio astronomy, due to the importance of hydrogen as an astronomical tracer. However, the hydrogen at the EoR is redshifted to a lower frequency.

Machele Cable of Wake Forest

Ned Wright's Cosmology Tutorial

Reionization occurs z ~ 6 -14, redshifted to 100 – 230 MHz

Array, or, Interferometer• Actual imaging of the neutral hydrogen will take

many more times the sensitivity of current telescopes

• Instead, measure power spectrum. This is natural for an interferometer, which detects spatial frequencies

Christian Deichert

www.daviddarling.info

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More on Interferometry

www.bruker-biospin.com

1-D Fourier Transforms

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2-element response

Prof. Dale E. Gary - NJIT

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What was the early

universe like?

With 32 antennas…

The Ionosphere

http://radiojove.gsfc.nasa.gov

http://madrigal.haystack.mit.edu/models/IRI/index.html

Astronomy in the desert…

• Far away from humans for next generation radio telescopes

• PAPER is poised to make the first detection of the Epoch of Reionization signal, giving us a clue to the first stars and galaxies

• Upcoming projects need bright young scientists and engineers to continue these explorations

Thank you!

wv governor’s school lecture

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