Understand
The redshifted 21-cm line of hydrogen holds great potential for the study of cosmology, as it can probe otherwise unobservable cosmic epochs.
- In particular, measurements of the 21-cm power spectrum during cosmic dawn---the era when the first stars were formed---will provide us with a wealth of information about the astrophysics of stellar formation, as well as the origin of fluctuations in our Universe.
- In addition to their usually considered density fluctuations, dark matter and baryons possess large relative velocities with respect to each other, due to the baryon acoustic oscillations (BAOs) suffered by the latter, which suppress the formation of stars during cosmic dawn, leaving an imprint on 21-cm observables during this era.
- Here we present 21cmvFAST, a version of the publicly available code 21cmFAST modified to account for this effect.