Signals from the Cosmic Dawn

Anastasia Fialkov (Havard ITC)

December 12, 2016

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Abstract: Apart from the CMB and a handful of high-redshift galaxies, the first billion years after the Big Bang remain largely unobserved making it difficult to reconstruct cosmic history. Although weak, the 21-cm line of neutral hydrogen offers a unique probe of the early Universe. Brightness temperature of this signal is coupled to various astrophysical processes that take place at high redshifts, such as growth of structure, star formation, heating of the intergalactic gas by first sources and its reionization. In my talk I will overview 21-cm cosmology focusing on the effect of X-ray heating sources. In addition I will discuss alternative probes of the high-redshift Universe.