Astro2020 Science White Paper: First Stars and Black Holes at Cosmic Dawn with Redshifted 21-cm Observations

The "cosmic dawn" refers to the period of the Universe's history when stars and black holes first formed and began heating and ionizing hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM). Though exceedingly difficult to detect directly, the first stars and black holes can be constrained indir...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:arXiv.org 2019-03
Main Authors: Jordan Mirocha, Jacobs, Daniel, Dillon, Josh, Furlanetto, Steve, Pober, Jonathan, Liu, Adrian, Aguirre, James, Ali-Haïmoud, Yacine, Alvarez, Marcelo, Beardsley, Adam, Becker, George, Bowman, Judd, Breysse, Patrick, Bromm, Volker, Burns, Jack, Chen, Xuelei, Chang, Tzu-Ching, Chiang, Hsin, Cohn, Joanne, DeBoer, David, Dvorkin, Cora, Fialkov, Anastasia, Gnedin, Nick, Hazelton, Bryna, Masui Kiyoshi, Kohn, Saul, Koopmans, Leon, Kovetz, Ely, Paul La Plante, Lidz, Adam, Yin-Zhe, Ma, Mao, Yi, Mesinger, Andrei, Muñoz, Julian, Murray, Steven, Parsons, Aaron, Pritchard, Jonathan, Sievers, Jonathan, Switzer, Eric, Thyagarajan, Nithyanandan, Visbal, Eli, Zaldarriaga, Matias
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Intergalactic media
Ionization
Stars
Stellar evolution
Universe
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The "cosmic dawn" refers to the period of the Universe's history when stars and black holes first formed and began heating and ionizing hydrogen in the intergalactic medium (IGM). Though exceedingly difficult to detect directly, the first stars and black holes can be constrained indirectly through measurements of the cosmic 21-cm background, which traces the ionization state and temperature of intergalactic hydrogen gas. In this white paper, we focus on the science case for such observations, in particular those targeting redshifts z \(\gtrsim\) 10 when the IGM is expected to be mostly neutral. 21-cm observations provide a unique window into this epoch and are thus critical to advancing first star and black hole science in the next decade.
ISSN:2331-8422