21cm fluctuations in the dark ages and cosmic heat flows

Yacine Ali-Haimoud (IAS)

August 13, 2015

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Abstract: The spin-flip transition in neutral hydrogen may be used to probe large-scale structure at high redshifts, before the first luminous objects formed. The huge number of modes potentially accessible make this a very promising avenue. I will discuss two key unknowns that could be measured with high-redshift 21cm surveys: primordial non-gaussianity and dark-matter-baryon interactions. I will close by discussing CMB spectral distortions, another promising probe of early Universe physics, and illustrate how they can be used to test dark-matter interactions with standard model particles.