Foreground Removal of CO Intensity Mapping Using Deep Learning

TL;DR

This paper demonstrates that a deep learning approach based on ResUNet can effectively remove foreground contamination from CO intensity mapping data, enabling accurate recovery of the underlying cosmological signal, with potential applications to other intensity mapping surveys.

Contribution

The study introduces a deep learning method using ResUNet combined with PCA preprocessing to remove foregrounds from CO intensity maps, improving signal recovery compared to traditional techniques.

Findings

ResUNet effectively reconstructs CO signals with correct power spectra.

The method successfully removes foregrounds and recovers PCA signal loss.

Applicable to other intensity mapping surveys like 21cm hydrogen observations.

Abstract

Line intensity mapping (LIM) is a promising probe to study star formation, the large-scale structure of the Universe, and the epoch of reionization (EoR). Since carbon monoxide (CO) is the second most abundant molecule in the Universe except for molecular hydrogen ${\rm H}_2$, it is suitable as a tracer for LIM surveys. However, just like other LIM surveys, CO intensity mapping also suffers strong foreground contamination that needs to be eliminated for extracting valuable astrophysical and cosmological information. In this work, we take $^{12}$CO($\it J$=1-0) emission line as an example to investigate whether deep learning method can effectively recover the signal by removing the foregrounds. The CO(1-0) intensity maps are generated by N-body simulations considering CO luminosity and halo mass relation, and we discuss two cases with median and low CO signals by comparing different relations. We add foregrounds generated from real observations, including thermal dust, spinning dust, free-free, synchrotron emission and CMB anisotropy. The beam with sidelobe effect is also considered. Our deep learning model is built upon ResUNet, which combines image generation algorithm UNet with the state-of-the-art architecture of deep learning, ResNet. The principal component analysis (PCA) method is employed to preprocess data before feeding it to the ResUNet. We find that, in the case of low instrumental noise, our UNet can efficiently reconstruct the CO signal map with correct line power spectrum by removing the foregrounds and recovering PCA signal loss and beam effects. Our method also can be applied to other intensity mappings like neutral hydrogen 21cm surveys.