Seminar by Rennan Barkana, Tel Aviv University
Radio waves from the early Universe are expected to manifest a rich signal due to the 21-cm line of intergalactic hydrogen. After years of theoretical predictions, a large international effort is now producing the first tentative results. The coming confrontation of theory and observations will reveal to us several chapters in the history of the Universe. One of them is the "cosmic dawn", the epoch of the formation of the first stars. Since conditions in the Universe at that time were unique in cosmic history, there is the potential for discovering properties of the dark matter that are otherwise undetectable. We will present forecasts for a recent particle-physics model motivated by the tentative detection by the EDGES experiment. Meanwhile, a very different regime within this field, the signal from the even earlier "dark ages", is seeing a major burst of activity, as part of the international race to return to the moon. This has the potential to become a powerful new probe of fundamental cosmology. We will show new, detailed forecasts.
Host: Zoltan Haiman