Building the Foundations for Huge-N Lunar Radio Interferometry

Observations of the highly-redshifted 21 cm line of neutral hydrogen are the only probe of the Universe's "Dark Ages", the period of cosmic history prior to the formation of the first stars and galaxies. Measurements of the Universe during its Dark Ages, however, would enable unprecedented precision tests of cosmology, greatly exceeding the Cosmic Microwave Background in both information content and impact. Addressing the challenges inherent in these hydrogen observations is therefore a key undertaking for modern cosmology. As concepts for these experiments mature, the nature of the radio telescope required has come into view. Firstly, it needs to be above the Earth's atmosphere, which is opaque to very long wavelength radio waves. Secondly, it needs to be very large (larger than any radio telescope currently being considered for construction on Earth). Lastly, it must be an excellent survey telescope, with very large fields of view. These considerations drive a radio interferometer concept, consisting of many hundreds of thousands of antennas, on the lunar far side (which solves not only the problem of the Earth's atmosphere, but provides shielding from human-generated radio signals on Earth.) The data rate of an interferometer grows as the square of the number of antennas, N, making a "huge-N" array a particular challenge for current software packages used to model, analyze, and calibrate these experiments. Support from this proposal will enable the PI to advance the state-of-the-art in low-frequency radio astronomy software so that a Dark Ages lunar radio telescope can be designed with the precision necessary to enable this challenging experiment. The project will take advantage of advanced parallelization techniques, improved data handling, and machine learning to provide enough speed-up to handle the huge-N arrays required for the experiment. This proposal will also aid the PI in establishing himself and his research group for long term impact in the field of dark ages cosmology. This project is of direct relevance to NASA Astrophysics and the goals of the Roman Technology Fellowship program. The Astro 2020 Decadal Survey recognized observations of the cosmic Dark Ages as the discovery area for cosmology, and the NASA Astrophysics Roadmap presented a concept for a Cosmic Dawn Mapper that could achieve this science. This proposal will advance the maturity of mission-critical software for such an experiment while also allowing rigorous trade studies for key design decisions. As noted, this research will also establish the PI as a leader in this field and help him develop the skills necessary to lead a mission as ambitious as the Cosmic Dawn Mapper.

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