Detectability of 21cm-signal during the Epoch of Reionization with 21cm-Lyman-$\alpha$ emitter cross-correlation. I

TL;DR

This paper assesses the potential to detect the 21cm signal during the Epoch of Reionization through 21cm-LAE cross-correlation, highlighting strategies to improve signal-to-noise ratio and measure ionized bubble sizes.

Contribution

It introduces an improved simulation approach and evaluates survey strategies, demonstrating the detectability of the 21cm-LAE cross-power spectrum with current and future radio telescopes.

Findings

MWA can detect large-scale cross-power spectrum with HSC LAE survey.

Adding PFS redshift info enhances small-scale sensitivity.

SKA can measure ionized bubble sizes with high precision.

Abstract

Detection of the redshifted 21cm-line signal from neutral hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM) during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) is complicated by intense foregrounds such as galactic synchrotron and extragalactic radio galaxies. The 21cm-Lyman-$\alpha$ emitter(LAE) cross-correlation is one of the tools available to reduce the foreground effects because the foreground emission from such radio sources is statistically independent of LAE distribution. LAE surveys during the EoR at redshifts $z=6.6$ and $7.3$ are ongoing by the Subaru Hyper Suprime-Cam (HSC). Additionally, Prime Focus Spectrograph (PFS) will provide precise redshift information of the LAEs discovered by the HSC survey. In this paper, we investigate the detectability of the 21cm signal with the 21cm-LAE cross-correlation by using our improved reionization simulations. We also focus on the error budget and evaluate it quantitatively in order to consider a strategy to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. In addition, we explore an expansion of the LAE survey to suggest optimal survey parameters and show a potential to measure a characteristic size of ionized bubbles via the turnover scale of the cross-power spectrum. As a result, we find that the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA) has ability to detect the cross-power spectrum signal on large scales by combining LAE Deep field survey of HSC. We also show that the sensitivity is improved dramatically at small scales by adding redshift information from the PFS measurements. The Square Kilometre Array (SKA) has a potential to measure the turnover scale with an accuracy of $6\times10^{-3}~{\rm Mpc^{-1}}$.