Inferring population III star properties from the 21-cm global signal

Abstract

Investigating the properties of the first stars in the universe, known as Population III (Pop~III) stars, is essential, yet it remains an open question. One way to explore these stars is by examining their effects on the surrounding gas during the cosmic dawn. In this study, we investigate whether the 21-cm global signal can constrain the typical mass and star formation efficiency of first-generation stars. We perform semi-numerical simulations that include the escape fraction of ionizing photons, which depends on stellar and halo masses, as well as the heating structure surrounding a halo that hosts the first star, determined by radiation hydrodynamics (RHD) simulations. Using a Fisher analysis that includes thermal noise for an integration time of $1000\,\mathrm{h}$, we find that the global signal provides information for constraining these properties if the foreground spectrum can be perfectly removed. However, when the smooth foreground spectrum is modeled using a log-polynomial and inferred from the same data, its spectral variation becomes strongly degenerate with the changes produced by the Pop~III parameters, substantially weakening the constraints. These results demonstrate that accurate foreground modeling and removal are essential for extracting information about Pop~III properties from the global 21-cm signal.