Prospects for measuring dark energy with 21 cm intensity mapping experiments

Abstract

Using the 21 cm intensity mapping (IM) technique can efficiently perform large-scale neutral hydrogen surveys, and this method has great potential for measuring dark-energy parameters. Some 21 cm IM experiments aiming at measuring dark energy in the redshift range of $0<z<3$ have been proposed and performed, in which the typical ones using single-dish mode include e.g., BINGO, FAST, and SKA1-MID, and those using interferometric mode include e.g., HIRAX, CHIME, and Tianlai. In this work, we make a forecast for these typical 21 cm IM experiments on their capability of measuring parameters of dark energy. We find that the interferometers have great advantages in constraining cosmological parameters. In particular, the Tianlai cylinder array alone can achieve the standard of precision cosmology for the $\Lambda$CDM model (i.e., the precision of parameters is better than 1%). However, for constraining dynamical dark energy, we find that SKA1-MID performs very well. We show that the simulated 21 cm IM data can break the parameter degeneracies inherent in the CMB data, and CMB+SKA1-MID offers $\sigma(w)=0.013$ in the $w$CDM model, and $\sigma(w_0)=0.080$ and $\sigma(w_a)=0.25$ in the CPL model. Compared with CMB+BAO+SN, Tianlai can provide tighter constraints in $\Lambda$CDM and $w$CDM, but looser constraints (tighter than CMB+BAO) in CPL, and the combination CMB+BAO+SN+Tianlai gives $\sigma(w)=0.013$, $\sigma(w_0)=0.055$, and $\sigma(w_a)=0.13$. In addition, it is found that the synergy of FAST ($0<z<0.35$)+SKA1-MID ($0.35<z<0.77$)+Tianlai ($0.77<z<2.55$) offers a very promising survey strategy. Finally, we find that the residual foreground contamination amplitude has a considerable impact on constraint results. We show that in the future 21 cm IM experiments will provide a powerful probe for exploring the nature of dark energy.