This work presents an analytical approach for studying the cosmological 21cm background signal from the Dark Ages (DA) and subsequent Epoch of Reionization (EoR). We simulate differential observations of a galaxy cluster to demonstrate how these epochs can be studied with a specific form of the Sunyaev-Zel'dovich Effect called the SZE-21cm. This work produces simulated maps of the SZE-21cm and shows that the SZE-21cm can be extracted from future observations with low-frequency radio interferometers such as the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) and the Square Kilometre Array (SKA). In order to simulate near realistic scenarios, we look into cosmic variance noise, incorporate and take into account the effects of foregrounds, thermal noise, and angular resolution for our simulated observations. We further extend this exploration by averaging over a sample of galaxy clusters to mitigate the effects of cosmic variance and instrumental noise. The impact of point source contamination is also studied. Lastly, we apply this technique to the results of the EDGES collaboration, which in 2018 reported an absorption feature of the global 21cm background signal centred at 78 MHz. The challenges to be addressed in order to achieve the objectives of this work include errors that arise due to cosmic variation, instrumental noise and point source contamination. Our approach demonstrates the potential of the SZE-21cm as an indirect probe for the DA and EoR, and we conclude that the spectral features of the SZE-21cm from our simulated observations yield results that are close to prior theoretical predictions and that the SZE-21cm can be used to test the validity of the EDGES detection.

中文翻译：

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Sunyaev-Zel'dovich 效应的模拟差分观测：探索黑暗时代和再电离时代

这项工作提出了一种用于研究来自黑暗时代 (DA) 和随后的再电离时代 (EoR) 的宇宙学 21 厘米背景信号的分析方法。我们模拟了对星系团的差分观测，以展示如何使用称为 SZE-21cm 的 Sunyaev-Zel'dovich 效应的特定形式来研究这些时代。这项工作生成了 SZE-21cm 的模拟地图，并表明 SZE-21cm 可以从未来的低频无线电干涉仪观测中提取，例如氢再电离阵列 (HERA) 和平方公里阵列 (SKA)。为了模拟接近现实的场景，我们研究了宇宙方差噪声，并结合并考虑了前景、热噪声和角分辨率对模拟观测的影响。我们通过对星系团样本进行平均来进一步扩展这一探索，以减轻宇宙方差和仪器噪声的影响。还研究了点源污染的影响。最后，我们将此技术应用于 EDGES 合作的结果，该合作在 2018 年报告了以 78 MHz 为中心的全球 21 厘米背景信号的吸收特征。为了实现这项工作的目标，需要解决的挑战包括由于宇宙变异、仪器噪声和点源污染而产生的误差。我们的方法证明了 SZE-21cm 作为 DA 和 EoR 的间接探针的潜力，