11:00 am–12:00 pm ERC 401
Title: Confronting Necessary* Evils in Radio Cosmology Experiments
Abstract: The past decade has seen an incredible increase in the number of experimental efforts targeting the cosmological 21cm signal from neutral hydrogen with low-frequency radio telescopes. With the recent publication of the first detection of the 21cm signal at low redshift, the continued push toward the eventual first detection at high redshift, and the imminent advent of several new experiments, it is truly an exciting time to do radio cosmology. Recovering the 21cm signal from the latest and upcoming data, however, is an enormously challenging task, primarily due to several subtle systematic effects that contaminate low-frequency radio observations. In this seminar, I will review how these systematic effects are modeled and mitigated, with a particular focus on my efforts toward converting raw interferometric data into scientifically useful data products. In particular, I will discuss CorrCal, a new technique for calibrating radio interferometric arrays with limited sky and instrument information, as well as recent advances in modeling the mutual coupling between array elements in the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array. This seminar will hopefully shed light on the enormous effort and ingenuity required to confidently detect the cosmological 21cm signal.
Zoom: https://uchicago.zoom.us/j/93417496909?pwd=LQDQeAq5cYy679Pn1RcxIrIm3SIgSE.1
