In AIDA we analyzed the spectra of quasars present during the first billion years of our Universe. Quasars, powered by accretion onto massive black holes, are among the brightest objects in our Universe. Their light can be used to probe the intervening matter as it travels to us. We developed a state-of-the-art analysis, which combined data from over a thousand relatively nearby quasars, in order to predict what the intrinsic spectra of these objects should be. Using this prediction of the intrinsic spectra of a z=7.1 bright quasar, we were able to compute how much of the light was absorbed by matter along the way to us. This resulted in the first ever detection of on-going cosmic reionization.
The other main focus of our efforts was how to make sense of upcoming cosmic 21cm observations. Powerful radio telescopes are set to 'image' the Epoch of Reionization and the Cosmic Dawn. They will map out the majority of the visible volume of our Universe, driving a data-rich revolution in astrophysics and cosmology. The patterns they discover will tell us about the nature of the very first galaxies. We created the theoretical framework which will be used to interpret these upcoming observations. We made forecasts showing how these telescopes will nail down important physical properties of the first galaxies, to orders of magnitude better precision than is available with today's observations. Our code is public on github and is used by all of the relevant telescopes.
Our results were published in peer-reviewed journals, and all work was made immediately available on the arXiv pre-print server. Our team presented the results in many international conferences and workshops. The codes we developed and improved, 21cmFAST and 21cmMC, are publicly available on the github repository. These codes are used by independent researchers in over 25 countries around the globe.
