English

CosmicWeb-21cm array: A New Radio Observation Array Design for 21cm Cosmology

Instrumentation and Methods for Astrophysics 2026-03-03 v1 Cosmology and Nongalactic Astrophysics

Abstract

This paper presents the CosmicWeb-21cm array, a novel radio interferometer designed to overcome the key challenges in 21 cm cosmology. Its core innovations include: (1) a multi-scale nested geometry combining a hexagonal core with logarithmic spiral arms for excellent UV coverage and calibration robustness; (2) an intelligent non-uniform frequency sampling strategy that adapts resolution to foreground and signal characteristics, reducing data volume while preserving information; and (3) a machine-learning-enhanced, physics-informed processing pipeline that achieves 99.7\% foreground removal efficiency; (4) a dual-polarization crossed dipole integrated with a dielectric lens and cryogenically cooled LNA, achieving stable beam patterns and low noise temperature (<35<35 K) across 50-250 MHz. These co-designed advances enable high sensitivity mapping of the Epoch of Reionization, dark energy constraints and cosmic-web structure.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.2603.01529,
  title  = {CosmicWeb-21cm array: A New Radio Observation Array Design for 21cm Cosmology},
  author = {Jiancheng Wang and Jirong Mao and Xiangming Cheng and Yigong Zhang and Jie Su and Xiaogu Zhong and Min Wang and Zhigang Zhang and Qingwei Wang and Yonghua Xu and Zhixuan Li and Longhua Qin and Zhengjun Zhang},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2603.01529},
  year   = {2026}
}

Comments

30 pages, 5 figures

R2 v1 2026-07-01T10:58:38.711Z