Kieran Cleary
California Institute of Technology, CA·Astronomy & Astrophysics
After the Big Bang, the universe went dark and filled with neutral hydrogen gas. When the first stars and galaxies formed, their ultraviolet light began stripping electrons from this gas.
- Fields
Astronomy & Astrophysics
Physics
- Topics
Epoch of Reionization
EoR
21 cm cosmology
- Grants
- 1 known grant, through Aug 2028
What they work on
- Build a duplicate of the COMAP Pathfinder receiver and use it to survey the carbon monoxide (CO) line across the sky through line intensity mapping, which measures the combined glow of many galaxies.
- Cross-correlate the COMAP carbon monoxide map with Low Frequency Array 21 cm hydrogen observations of the same field to cancel out errors, interference and foregrounds that differ between the two experiments.
- Constrain the CO × HI cross power spectrum, which describes how carbon monoxide and neutral hydrogen signals vary together, aiming for limits 30 times better than current ones to confirm the reionization-era 21 cm signal.
More about the research
This created growing bubbles of ionized gas that eventually merged. This era is called the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). The most direct way to observe it is through the 21 cm radio line emitted by neutral hydrogen (HI). That signal is buried under foreground emission up to 100,000 times brighter, as well as radio interference and subtle instrument errors. It has never been clearly detected.
Why it matters
This is basic research. A clean cross-correlation of carbon monoxide and hydrogen maps could confirm the faint radio signal from the era when the first galaxies reionized the universe. It could also tighten measurements of how intergalactic gas was structured and evolved, and it could provide a check on the systematic errors that challenge 21 cm cosmology.
Known grants
From NIH and NSF research grants. Labs often have other funding we can't see.
Closest labs
Andrew Harris
University of Maryland, MD·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Duplicate the existing COMAP Pathfinder receiver and use it to carry out a sky survey of redshifted carbon monoxide (CO) emission by line intensity mapping.
Aaron Parsons
University of California-Berkeley, CA·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Measure the redshifted 21-cm radio signal from neutral hydrogen, emitted at a rest frequency of 1420 MHz, across 50–250 MHz using the HERA array of 350 dish antennas, to trace the universe from the Cosmic Dawn to reionization.
Laura Newburgh
Yale University, CT·Astronomy & Astrophysics
Develop modeling frameworks and analysis pipelines for cross-correlating CHIME 21cm hydrogen maps with galaxy surveys, and integrate improved models of the telescope beam into the analysis.
The school
California Institute of Technology: 18 labs on PI Pages, $445M a year on research, 200 research doctorates a year.
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