The EoR sensitivity of the Murchison Widefield Array

• Main Authors: Cappallo, Roger J. (Contributor), Corey, Brian E. (Contributor), Goeke, Robert F. (Contributor), Hewitt, Jacqueline N. (Contributor), Kincaid, Barton B. (Contributor), Kratzenberg, Eric W. (Contributor), Lonsdale, Colin John (Contributor), McWhirter, Stephen R. (Contributor), Morgan, Edward H. (Contributor), Oberoi, Divya (Contributor), Remillard, Ronald Alan (Contributor), Rogers, Alan E. E. (Contributor), Salah, J. E. (Contributor), Whitney, Alan R. (Contributor), Williams, Christopher Leigh (Contributor)
• Other Authors: Haystack Observatory (Contributor), MIT Kavli Institute for Astrophysics and Space Research (Contributor)
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford University Press, 2014-07-22T12:44:07Z.
• Subjects: Article
• Online Access: Get fulltext

Using the final 128 antenna locations of the Murchison Widefield Array (MWA), we calculate its sensitivity to the epoch of reionization (EoR) power spectrum of redshifted 21 cm emission for a fiducial model and provide the tools to calculate the sensitivity for any model. Our calculation takes into account synthesis rotation, chromatic and asymmetrical baseline effects, and excludes modes that will be contaminated by foreground subtraction. For the fiducial model, the MWA will be capable of a 14σ detection of the EoR signal with one full season of observation on two fields (900 and 700 h).
National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant AST CAREER-0847753)
National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant AST-0457585)
National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant AST-0908884)
National Science Foundation (U.S.) (Grant PHY-0835713)
United States. Air Force Office of Scientific Research (Grant FA9550-0510247)
Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory
MIT School of Science