Project description
An appointment with our universe's earliest historian
According to the Big Bang theory, nearly 14 billion years ago our universe was born in the explosion of a 'point'. The temperature almost instantaneously reached about 5.5 billion °C, and a hot energetic plasma of neutrons, protons, electrons, anti-electrons (positrons), photons and neutrinos emerged. As the universe expanded rapidly and cooled, protons and electrons came together to eventually form neutral hydrogen and helium atoms. Without all those free electrons scattering and impeding light’s journey, the universe was no longer 'opaque'. As stars, black holes and galaxies formed, the universe's first sources of light were born, and the 21-cm spectral line arising from neutral hydrogen is our historian of that time. The EU-funded CODEX project is combining the most advanced 21-cm signal observational programs and boosting signal and data processing to enable our hydrogen historian to tell us its story.
Objective
"Radiation emitted by neutral hydrogen during the Universe's first billion years holds detailed information about its first stars, galaxies, black holes and fundamental physics. Achieving a detection of its faint ""21-cm signal"", currently redshifted to several meter wavelengths, has been extremely difficult due to the bright radio emission from other sources, human-made interference signals, the ionosphere, and telescope imperfections. It thus remains one of the hardest frontiers in present-day cosmology.
In the past years, we made tremendous progress in mitigating these challenges, thanks to access to world-class low-frequency radio telescopes and research into innovative data analysis techniques. Using the Low-Frequency Array (LOFAR), we set the deepest limits on the 21-cm signal during the Epoch of Reionization, 500-1000 million years after the Big Bang, and the first limits during the early Cosmic Dawn. We started two innovative programs with AARTFAAC and NenuFAR, targeting the entire span of the Cosmic Dawn (100-500 million years), covering the recently-announced global 21-cm signal from EDGES. Last but not least, we launched the Netherlands-China Low-Frequency Explorer (NCLE) space-mission, currently in lunar L2 as part of the Chinese Chang-e' 4 mission, to set the first limits on the global 21-cm signal from the Dark Ages (20-100 million years).
CoDEX draws together these state-of-the-art observational programs and their expertise into a single program, improving current 21-cm power spectrum limits by three to six orders of magnitude, advancing them into the domain of standard astrophysical models from z~8 to ~80. To achieve this, we will process petabytes of data, strengthen efforts in the signal- and data-processing domain and enhance processing capacity. ERC funding enables us to achieve this in the coming years before next-generation instruments, such as the SKA, come online."
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.1. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
ERC-ADG - Advanced Grant
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2019-ADG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
9712CP Groningen
Netherlands
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.