Constraining the epoch of reionization with the variance statistic: simulations of the LOFAR case

Understand

Several experiments are underway to detect the cosmic redshifted 21-cm signal from neutral hydrogen from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR).

• Due to their very low signal-to-noise ratio, these observations aim for a statistical detection of the signal by measuring its power spectrum.
• We investigate the extraction of the variance of the signal as a first step towards detecting and constraining the global history of the EoR.
• Signal variance is the integral of the signal's power spectrum, and it is expected to be measured with a high significance.