Cosmology from the EoR/Cosmic Dawn with the SKA

Understand

The SKA will build upon early detections of the EoR by precursor instruments, such as MWA, PAPER, and LOFAR, and planned instruments, such as HERA, to make the first high signal-to-noise measurements of fluctuations in the 21 cm brightness temperature from both reionization and the cosmic dawn.

• This will allow both imaging and statistical maps of the 21cm signal at redshifts z = 6 - 27 and constrain the underlying cosmology and evolution of the density field.
• This era includes nearly 60% of the (in principle) observable volume of the Universe and many more linear modes than the CMB, presenting an opportunity for SKA to usher in a new level of precision cosmology.
• This optimistic picture is complicated by the need to understand and remove the effect of astrophysics, so that systematics rather than statistics will limit constraints.