A first detection of neutral hydrogen intensity mapping on Mpc scales at $z\approx 0.32$ and $z\approx 0.44$

TL;DR

This paper reports the first direct detection of the neutral hydrogen (HI) power spectrum at redshifts around 0.3 and 0.4 using MeerKAT, demonstrating the potential of intensity mapping for cosmological studies.

Contribution

It presents the first independent measurements of the HI power spectrum at these redshifts with high significance, advancing the use of intensity mapping for cosmology.

Findings

Detected HI power spectrum at z≈0.32 and z≈0.44 with 8.0σ and 11.5σ significance.

Constrained the rms fluctuations of HI distribution at 1 Mpc scales.

Provided insights into HI mass function and halo models.

Abstract

We report the first direct detection of the cosmological power spectrum using the intensity signal from 21-cm emission of neutral hydrogen (HI), derived from interferometric observations with the L-band receivers of the new MeerKAT radio telescope. Intensity mapping is a promising technique to map the three-dimensional matter distribution of the Universe at radio frequencies and probe the underlying Cosmology. So far, detections have only been achieved through cross-correlations with galaxy surveys. Here we present independent measurements of the HI power spectrum at redshifts $0.32$ and $0.44$ with high statistical significance using a foreground avoidance method (at $8.0\sigma$ and $11.5\sigma$ respectively). We constrain the rms of the fluctuations of the HI distribution to be $\sigma_{\rm HI} = (0.44\pm 0.04)\,{\rm mK}$ and $\sigma_{\rm HI} = (0.63\pm 0.03)\,{\rm mK}$ respectively at scales of 1.0 Mpc. The information contained in the power spectrum measurements allows us to probe the parameters of the HI mass function and HI halo model. These results are a significant step towards precision cosmology with HI intensity mapping using the new generation of radio telescopes.