Abstract Details
| Name: Tomáš Šoltinský Affiliation: Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Conference ID: ASI2024_608 Title : Prospects of statistical detection of the 21-cm forest by the uGMRT Authors and Co-Authors : Tomáš Šoltinský, Girish Kulkarni Abstract Type : Oral Abstract Category : Galaxies and Cosmology Abstract : The cosmological 21-cm forest, a series of absorption lines in the spectra of high-z radio-loud sources arising from the hyperfine structure of neutral hydrogen residing in the intergalactic medium (IGM), has a potential to be a unique probe of the nature of dark matter and ionization and thermal state of the IGM during the Epoch of Reionization. I will argue that now may be the right time to try to detect the 21-cm forest signal because of (1) recent evidence that reionization ended as late as z<5.5; (2) increase in the number of known high-z radio-loud quasars; (3) uGMRT's superior sensitivity. In this context, I will present our models of the 21-cm forest signal based on state-of-the-art cosmological simulations. I will discuss the detectability of this signal by the uGMRT, both direct detection of individual absorption lines and statistical detection. I will argue that the detection of the 21-cm forest power spectrum with the uGMRT is possible with realistic observational setup. I will finish this talk by showing that the uGMRT provides a unique opportunity to constrain the ionization and thermal state of the IGM during the reionization by utilizing the spectroscopical observations of the 21-cm forest signal. |