| Description: | I will discuss recent results from the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA), which presented an analysis of 18 nights of HERA Phase I data targeting the 21 cm signal at the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). With improved models for instrumental systematics and a carefully tailored calibration and data reduction pipeline, this first analysis from HERA set new limits on the reionization power spectrum that improved upon existing limits by over an order of magnitude at redshift 8. I will discuss some of the advancements that made this possible, as well as the suite of statistical and simulated pipeline checks we have performed to build confidence in the result. I will also discuss some of the theoretical implications of the new limits on IGM heating models, and will close by outlining what we expect to see from HERA in the coming years.
The image here shows a snapshot from a cosmological simulation of reionization in the early Universe. The dark areas depict neutral hydrogen gas that emits/absorbs the 21-cm radiation gthat HERA aims to detect. The red, blue, and white colours depict increasingly hotter gas that has been ionised by the first sources of light in the Universe. |
