arXiv subjects

Adrian Liu

Publications and source records attributed to Adrian Liu.

At least 37 records · Page 2Linked to original sources

arXiv2025

An Alcock-Paczynski Test on Reionization Bubbles for Cosmology

In this paper, we propose an Alcock-Paczyński (AP) test to constrain cosmology using HII bubbles during the Epoch of Reionization. Similarly to cosmic voids, a stack of HII bubbles is spherically symmetric because ionizing fronts propagate isotropically on average (even if individual bubbles may not be spherical), making them standard spheres to be used in an AP test. Upcoming 21-cm observations, from the Square Kilometer Array (SKA) for instance, will contain tomographic information about HII regions during reionization. However, extracting the bubbles from this signal is made difficult because of instrumental noise and foreground systematics. Here, we use a neural network to reconstruct neutral-fraction boxes from the noisy 21-cm signal, from which we extract bubbles using a watershed algorithm. We then run the purely geometrical AP test on these stacks, showing that a SKA-like experiment will be able to constrain the product of the angular-diameter distance $D_{\text{A}}$ and Hubble parameter $H$ at reionization redshifts with $\sim 2\%$ precision, robustly to astrophysical and cosmological uncertainties within the models tested here. This AP test, whether performed on 21-cm observations or other large surveys of ionized bubbles, will allow us to fill the knowledge gap about the expansion rate of our Universe at reionization redshifts.

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arXiv2025

Bayesian estimation of cross-coupling and reflection systematics in 21cm array visibility data

Observations with radio arrays that target the 21-cm signal originating from the early Universe suffer from a variety of systematic effects. An important class of these are reflections and spurious couplings between antennas. We apply a Hamiltonian Monte Carlo sampler to the modelling and mitigation of these systematics in simulated Hydrogen Epoch of Reionisation Array (HERA) data. This method allows us to form statistical uncertainty estimates for both our models and the recovered visibilities, which is an important ingredient in establishing robust upper limits on the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR) power spectrum. In cases where the noise is large compared to the EoR signal, this approach can constrain the systematics well enough to mitigate them down to the noise level for both systematics studied. Incoherently averaging the recovered power spectra can further reduce the noise and improve recovery. Where the noise level is lower than the EoR, our modelling can mitigate the majority of the reflections and coupling with there being only a minor level of residual systematics. Our approach performs similarly to existing filtering/fitting techniques used in the HERA pipeline, but with the added benefit of rigorously propagating uncertainties. In all cases it does not significantly attenuate the underlying signal.

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arXiv2025

Forecasts and Statistical Insights for Line Intensity Mapping Cross-Correlations: A Case Study with 21cm x [CII]

Intensity mapping -- the large-scale mapping of selected spectral lines without resolving individual sources -- is quickly emerging as an efficient way to conduct large cosmological surveys. Multiple surveys covering a variety of lines (such as the hydrogen 21cm hyperfine line, CO rotational lines, and [CII] fine structure lines, among others) are either observing or will soon be online, promising a panchromatic view of our Universe over a broad redshift range. With multiple lines potentially covering the same volume, cross-correlations have become an attractive prospect, both for probing the underlying astrophysics and for mitigating observational systematics. For example, cross correlating 21cm and [CII] intensity maps during reionization could reveal the characteristic scale of ionized bubbles around the first galaxies, while simultaneously providing a convenient way to reduce independent foreground contaminants between the two surveys. However, many of the desirable properties of cross-correlations in principle emerge only under ideal conditions, such as infinite ensemble averages. In this paper, we construct an end-to-end pipeline for analyzing intensity mapping cross-correlations, enabling instrumental effects, foreground residuals, and analysis choices to be propagated through Monte Carlo simulations to a set of rigorous error properties, including error covariances, window functions, and full probability distributions for power spectrum estimates. We use this framework to critically examine the applicability of simplifying assumptions such as the independence and Gaussianity of power spectrum errors. As worked examples, we forecast the sensitivity of near-term and futuristic 21cm-[CII] cross-correlation measurements, providing recommendations for survey design.

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arXiv2025

matvis: A matrix-based visibility simulator for fast forward modelling of many-element 21 cm arrays

Detection of the faint 21 cm line emission from the Cosmic Dawn and Epoch of Reionisation will require not only exquisite control over instrumental calibration and systematics to achieve the necessary dynamic range of observations but also validation of analysis techniques to demonstrate their statistical properties and signal loss characteristics. A key ingredient in achieving this is the ability to perform high-fidelity simulations of the kinds of data that are produced by the large, many-element, radio interferometric arrays that have been purpose-built for these studies. The large scale of these arrays presents a computational challenge, as one must simulate a detailed sky and instrumental model across many hundreds of frequency channels, thousands of time samples, and tens of thousands of baselines for arrays with hundreds of antennas. In this paper, we present a fast matrix-based method for simulating radio interferometric measurements (visibilities) at the necessary scale. We achieve this through judicious use of primary beam interpolation, fast approximations for coordinate transforms, and a vectorised outer product to expand per-antenna quantities to per-baseline visibilities, coupled with standard parallelisation techniques. We validate the results of this method, implemented in the publicly-available matvis code, against a high-precision reference simulator, and explore its computational scaling on a variety of problems.

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arXiv2024

Impacts and Statistical Mitigation of Missing Data on the 21cm Power Spectrum: A Case Study with the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array

The precise characterization and mitigation of systematic effects is one of the biggest roadblocks impeding the detection of the fluctuations of cosmological 21cm signals. Missing data in radio cosmological experiments, often due to radio frequency interference (RFI), poses a particular challenge to power spectrum analysis as it could lead to the ringing of bright foreground modes in Fourier space, heavily contaminating the cosmological signals. Here we show that the problem of missing data becomes even more arduous in the presence of systematic effects. Using a realistic numerical simulation, we demonstrate that partially flagged data combined with systematic effects can introduce significant foreground ringing. We show that such an effect can be mitigated through inpainting the missing data. We present a rigorous statistical framework that incorporates the process of inpainting missing data into a quadratic estimator of the 21cm power spectrum. Under this framework, the uncertainties associated with our inpainting method and its impact on power spectrum statistics can be understood. These results are applied to the latest Phase II observations taken by the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array, forming a crucial component in power spectrum analyses as we move toward detecting 21cm signals in the ever more noisy RFI environment.

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arXiv2024

A Generalized Method for Characterizing 21-cm Power Spectrum Signal Loss from Temporal Filtering of Drift-scanning Visibilities

A successful detection of the cosmological 21-cm signal from intensity mapping experiments (for example, during the Epoch of Reioinization or Cosmic Dawn) is contingent on the suppression of subtle systematic effects in the data. Some of these systematic effects, with mutual coupling a major concern in interferometric data, manifest with temporal variability distinct from that of the cosmological signal. Fringe-rate filtering -- a time-based Fourier filtering technique -- is a powerful tool for mitigating these effects; however, fringe-rate filters also attenuate the cosmological signal. Analyses that employ fringe-rate filters must therefore be supplemented by careful accounting of the signal loss incurred by the filters. In this paper, we present a generalized formalism for characterizing how the cosmological 21-cm signal is attenuated by linear time-based filters applied to interferometric visibilities from drift-scanning telescopes. Our formalism primarily relies on analytic calculations and therefore has a greatly reduced computational cost relative to traditional Monte Carlo signal loss analyses. We apply our signal loss formalism to a filtering strategy used by the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) and compare our analytic predictions against signal loss estimates obtained through a Monte Carlo analysis. We find excellent agreement between the analytic predictions and Monte Carlo estimates and therefore conclude that HERA, as well as any other drift-scanning interferometric experiment, should use our signal loss formalism when applying linear, time-based filters to the visibilities.

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arXiv2024

Direct Optimal Mapping Image Power Spectrum and its Window Functions

The key to detecting neutral hydrogen during the epoch of reionization (EoR) is to separate the cosmological signal from the dominating foreground radiation. We developed direct optimal mapping (DOM) to map interferometric visibilities; it contains only linear operations, with full knowledge of point spread functions from visibilities to images. Here, we demonstrate a fast Fourier transform-based image power spectrum and its window functions computed from the DOM images. We use noiseless simulation, based on the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array Phase I configuration, to study the image power spectrum properties. The window functions show $<10^{-11}$ of the integrated power leaks from the foreground-dominated region into the EoR window; the 2D and 1D power spectra also verify the separation between the foregrounds and the EoR.

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arXiv2024

Constraining Cosmology With the CMB $\times$ LIM-Nulling Convergence

Lensing reconstruction maps from the cosmic microwave background (CMB) provide direct observations of the matter distribution of the universe without the use of a biased tracer. Such maps, however, constitute projected observables along the line of sight that are dominated by their low-redshift contributions. To cleanly access high-redshift information, Maniyar et al. showed that a linear combination of lensing maps from both CMB and line intensity mapping (LIM) observations can exactly null the low-redshift contribution to CMB lensing convergence. In this paper we explore the scientific returns of this nulling technique. We show that LIM-nulling estimators can place constraints on standard $Λ$CDM plus neutrino mass parameters that are competitive with traditional CMB lensing. Additionally, we demonstrate that as a clean probe of the high-redshift universe, LIM-nulling can be used for model-independent tests of cosmology beyond $Λ$CDM and as a probe of the high-redshift matter power spectrum.

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arXiv2024

A New Probe of the High-z BAO scale: BAO tomography With CMB $\times$ LIM-Nulling Convergence

Standard rulers such as the baryon acoustic oscillation (BAO) scale serve as workhorses for precision tests of cosmology, enabling distance measurements that probe the geometry and expansion history of our Universe. Aside from BAO measurements from the cosmic microwave background (CMB), most standard ruler techniques operate at relatively low redshifts and depend on biased tracers of the matter density field. In a companion paper, we explored the scientific reach of nulling estimators, where CMB lensing convergence maps are cross-correlated with linear combinations of similar maps from line intensity mapping (LIM) to precisely null out the low-redshift contributions to CMB lensing. We showed that nulling estimators can be used to constrain the high redshift matter power spectrum and showed that this spectrum exhibits discernible BAO features. Here we propose using these features as a standard ruler at high redshifts that does not rely on biased tracers. Forecasting such a measurement at $z \sim 5$, we find that next-generation instruments will be able to constrain the BAO scale to percent-level precision at $7.2 \%$, while our futuristic observing scenario can constrain the BAO scale to $4\%$ precision. This constitutes a fundamentally new kind of BAO measurement during early epochs in our cosmic history.

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arXiv2024

Machine-learning recovery of foreground wedge-removed 21-cm light cones for high-$z$ galaxy mapping

Upcoming experiments will map the spatial distribution of the 21-cm signal over three-dimensional volumes of space during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). Several methods have been proposed to mitigate the issue of astrophysical foreground contamination in tomographic images of the 21-cm signal, one of which involves the excision of a wedge-shaped region in cylindrical Fourier space. While this removes the $k$-modes most readily contaminated by foregrounds, the concurrent removal of cosmological information located within the wedge considerably distorts the structure of 21-cm images. In this study, we build upon a U-Net based deep learning algorithm to reconstruct foreground wedge-removed maps of the 21-cm signal, newly incorporating light-cone effects. Adopting the Square Kilometre Array (SKA) as our fiducial instrument, we highlight that our U-Net recovery framework retains a reasonable level of reliability even in the face of instrumental limitations and noise. We subsequently evaluate the efficacy of recovered maps in guiding high-redshift galaxy searches and providing context to existing galaxy catalogues. This will allow for studies of how the high-redshift galaxy luminosity function varies across environments, and ultimately refine our understanding of the connection between the ionization state of the intergalactic medium (IGM) and galaxies during the EoR.

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arXiv2024

Recovering the Wedge Modes Lost to 21-cm Foregrounds

One of the critical challenges facing imaging studies of the 21-cm signal at the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) is the separation of astrophysical foreground contamination. These foregrounds are known to lie in a wedge-shaped region of $(k_{\perp},k_{\parallel})$ Fourier space. Removing these Fourier modes excises the foregrounds at grave expense to image fidelity, since the cosmological information at these modes is also removed by the wedge filter. However, the 21-cm EoR signal is non-Gaussian, meaning that the lost wedge modes are correlated to the surviving modes by some covariance matrix. We have developed a machine learning-based method which exploits this information to identify ionized regions within a wedge-filtered image. Our method reliably identifies the largest ionized regions and can reconstruct their shape, size, and location within an image. We further demonstrate that our method remains viable when instrumental effects are accounted for, using the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array and the Square Kilometre Array as fiducial instruments. The ability to recover spatial information from wedge-filtered images unlocks the potential for imaging studies using current- and next-generation instruments without relying on detailed models of the astrophysical foregrounds themselves.

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arXiv2024

Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) Phase II Deployment and Commissioning

This paper presents the design and deployment of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) phase II system. HERA is designed as a staged experiment targeting 21 cm emission measurements of the Epoch of Reionization. First results from the phase I array are published as of early 2022, and deployment of the phase II system is nearing completion. We describe the design of the phase II system and discuss progress on commissioning and future upgrades. As HERA is a designated Square Kilometer Array (SKA) pathfinder instrument, we also show a number of "case studies" that investigate systematics seen while commissioning the phase II system, which may be of use in the design and operation of future arrays. Common pathologies are likely to manifest in similar ways across instruments, and many of these sources of contamination can be mitigated once the source is identified.

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arXiv2023

A General Bayesian Framework to Account for Foreground Map Errors in Global 21-cm Experiments

Measurement of the global 21-cm signal during Cosmic Dawn (CD) and the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) is made difficult by bright foreground emission which is 2-5 orders of magnitude larger than the expected signal. Fitting for a physics-motivated parametric forward model of the data within a Bayesian framework provides a robust means to separate the signal from the foregrounds, given sufficient information about the instrument and sky. It has previously been demonstrated that, within such a modelling framework, a foreground model of sufficient fidelity can be generated by dividing the sky into $N$ regions and scaling a base map assuming a distinct uniform spectral index in each region. Using the Radio Experiment for the Analysis of Cosmic Hydrogen (REACH) as our fiducial instrument, we show that, if unaccounted-for, amplitude errors in low-frequency radio maps used for our base map model will prevent recovery of the 21-cm signal within this framework, and that the level of bias in the recovered 21-cm signal is proportional to the amplitude and the correlation length of the base-map errors in the region. We introduce an updated foreground model that is capable of accounting for these measurement errors by fitting for a monopole offset and a set of spatially-dependent scale factors describing the ratio of the true and model sky temperatures, with the size of the set determined by Bayesian evidence-based model comparison. We show that our model is flexible enough to account for multiple foreground error scenarios allowing the 21-cm sky-averaged signal to be detected without bias from simulated observations with a smooth conical log spiral antenna.

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arXiv2023

A statistical framework for recovering intensity mapping autocorrelations from crosscorrelations

Intensity mapping experiments will soon have surveyed large swathes of the sky, providing information about the underlying matter distribution of the early universe. The resulting maps can be used to recover statistical information, such as the power spectrum, about the measured spectral lines (for example, HI, [CII], and [OIII]). However precise power spectrum measurements, such as the 21 cm autocorrelation, continue to be challenged by the presence of bright foregrounds and non-trivial systematics. By crosscorrelating different data sets, it may be possible to mitigate the effects of both foreground uncertainty and uncorrelated instrumental systematics. Beyond their own merit, crosscorrelations could also be used to recover autocorrelation information. Such a technique was proposed in Beane et al. (2019) for recovering the 21 cm power spectrum. Generalizing their result, we develop a statistical framework for combining multiple crosscorrelation signals in order to infer information about the corresponding autocorrelations. We do this first within the Least Squares Estimator (LSE) framework, and show how one can derive their estimator, along with several alternative estimators. We also investigate the posterior distribution of recovered autocorrelation and associated model parameters. We find that for certain noise regimes and cosmological signal modeling assumptions this procedure is effective at recovering autospectra from a set of crosscorrelations. Finally, we showcase our framework in the context of several near-future line intensity mapping experiments.

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arXiv2023

Characterization Of Inpaint Residuals In Interferometric Measurements of the Epoch Of Reionization

Radio Frequency Interference (RFI) is one of the systematic challenges preventing 21cm interferometric instruments from detecting the Epoch of Reionization. To mitigate the effects of RFI on data analysis pipelines, numerous inpaint techniques have been developed to restore RFI corrupted data. We examine the qualitative and quantitative errors introduced into the visibilities and power spectrum due to inpainting. We perform our analysis on simulated data as well as real data from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) Phase 1 upper limits. We also introduce a convolutional neural network that capable of inpainting RFI corrupted data in interferometric instruments. We train our network on simulated data and show that our network is capable at inpainting real data without requiring to be retrained. We find that techniques that incorporate high wavenumbers in delay space in their modeling are best suited for inpainting over narrowband RFI. We also show that with our fiducial parameters Discrete Prolate Spheroidal Sequences (DPSS) and CLEAN provide the best performance for intermittent ``narrowband'' RFI while Gaussian Progress Regression (GPR) and Least Squares Spectral Analysis (LSSA) provide the best performance for larger RFI gaps. However we caution that these qualitative conclusions are sensitive to the chosen hyperparameters of each inpainting technique. We find these results to be consistent in both simulated and real visibilities. We show that all inpainting techniques reliably reproduce foreground dominated modes in the power spectrum. Since the inpainting techniques should not be capable of reproducing noise realizations, we find that the largest errors occur in the noise dominated delay modes. We show that in the future, as the noise level of the data comes down, CLEAN and DPSS are most capable of reproducing the fine frequency structure in the visibilities of HERA data.

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arXiv2023

Search for the Epoch of Reionisation with HERA: Upper Limits on the Closure Phase Delay Power Spectrum

Radio interferometers aiming to measure the power spectrum of the redshifted 21 cm line during the Epoch of Reionisation (EoR) need to achieve an unprecedented dynamic range to separate the weak signal from overwhelming foreground emissions. Calibration inaccuracies can compromise the sensitivity of these measurements to the effect that a detection of the EoR is precluded. An alternative to standard analysis techniques makes use of the closure phase, which allows one to bypass antenna-based direction-independent calibration. Similarly to standard approaches, we use a delay spectrum technique to search for the EoR signal. Using 94 nights of data observed with Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), we place approximate constraints on the 21 cm power spectrum at $z=7.7$. We find at 95% confidence that the 21 cm EoR brightness temperature is $\le$(372)$^2$ "pseudo" mK$^2$ at 1.14 "pseudo" $h$ Mpc$^{-1}$, where the "pseudo" emphasises that these limits are to be interpreted as approximations to the actual distance scales and brightness temperatures. Using a fiducial EoR model, we demonstrate the feasibility of detecting the EoR with the full array. Compared to standard methods, the closure phase processing is relatively simple, thereby providing an important independent check on results derived using visibility intensities, or related.

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arXiv2023

Improved Constraints on the 21 cm EoR Power Spectrum and the X-Ray Heating of the IGM with HERA Phase I Observations

We report the most sensitive upper limits to date on the 21 cm epoch of reionization power spectrum using 94 nights of observing with Phase I of the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA). Using similar analysis techniques as in previously reported limits (HERA Collaboration 2022a), we find at 95% confidence that $Δ^2(k = 0.34$ $h$ Mpc$^{-1}$) $\leq 457$ mK$^2$ at $z = 7.9$ and that $Δ^2 (k = 0.36$ $h$ Mpc$^{-1}) \leq 3,496$ mK$^2$ at $z = 10.4$, an improvement by a factor of 2.1 and 2.6 respectively. These limits are mostly consistent with thermal noise over a wide range of $k$ after our data quality cuts, despite performing a relatively conservative analysis designed to minimize signal loss. Our results are validated with both statistical tests on the data and end-to-end pipeline simulations. We also report updated constraints on the astrophysics of reionization and the cosmic dawn. Using multiple independent modeling and inference techniques previously employed by HERA Collaboration (2022b), we find that the intergalactic medium must have been heated above the adiabatic cooling limit at least as early as $z = 10.4$, ruling out a broad set of so-called "cold reionization" scenarios. If this heating is due to high-mass X-ray binaries during the cosmic dawn, as is generally believed, our result's 99% credible interval excludes the local relationship between soft X-ray luminosity and star formation and thus requires heating driven by evolved low-metallicity stars.

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arXiv2023

Impact of instrument and data characteristics in the interferometric reconstruction of the 21 cm power spectrum

Combining the visibilities measured by an interferometer to form a cosmological power spectrum is a complicated process. In a delay-based analysis, the mapping between instrumental and cosmological space is not a one-to-one relation. Instead, neighbouring modes contribute to the power measured at one point, with their respective contributions encoded in the window functions. To better understand the power measured by an interferometer, we assess the impact of instrument characteristics and analysis choices on these window functions. Focusing on the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) as a case study, we find that long-baseline observations correspond to enhanced low-k tails of the window functions, which facilitate foreground leakage, whilst an informed choice of bandwidth and frequency taper can reduce said tails. With simple test cases and realistic simulations, we show that, apart from tracing mode mixing, the window functions help accurately reconstruct the power spectrum estimator of simulated visibilities. The window functions depend strongly on the beam chromaticity, and less on its spatial structure - a Gaussian approximation, ignoring side lobes, is sufficient. Finally, we investigate the potential of asymmetric window functions, down-weighting the contribution of low-k power to avoid foreground leakage. The window functions presented here correspond to the latest HERA upper limits for the full Phase I data. They allow an accurate reconstruction of the power spectrum measured by the instrument and will be used in future analyses to confront theoretical models and data directly in cylindrical space.

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