Primordial non-Gaussianity from the 21 cm Power Spectrum during the Epoch of Reionization

Shahab Joudaki, Olivier Dore, Luis Ferramacho, Manoj Kaplinghat, Mario G. Santos

Published 2011-05-09, updated 2011-09-04Version 2

Primordial non-Gaussianity is a crucial test of inflationary cosmology. We consider the impact of non-Gaussianity on the ionization power spectrum from 21 cm emission during the epoch of reionization. We focus on the power spectrum on large scales at redshifts of 7 to 8 and explore the expected constraint on the local non-Gaussianity parameter f_NL for current and next-generation 21 cm experiments. We show that experiments such as SKA and MWA could measure f_NL values of order 10. This can be improved by an order of magnitude with a fast-Fourier transform telescope like Omniscope.