Seeking the Dark Ages of the Universe: Modeling Radio Observations with LuSEE-Night from the Far Side of the Moon

Interest in discovering the cosmic Dark Ages signal is higher than ever, with the Astro2020 Decadal Survey naming it as the cosmological discovery area of the decade. In response to this call to action, the Lunar Surface Electromagnetics Experiment (LuSEE-Night) (Bale et al. 2023, arXiv:2301.10345) was designed with the 1 – 50 MHz Dark Ages signal in mind. As a low frequency radio telescope, LuSEE-Night is best utilized outside the ionosphere in an area with low radio frequency interference, and the far side of the Moon fits this requirement well. In addition to being a pathfinding cosmology mission, LuSEE-Night will also be capable of observations in support of heliophysics, exoplanets, bright radio sources, and more. Additionally, LuSEE-Night will be deployed with an orbiting far field calibration source that will aid in characterizing the antenna power pattern, gain fluctuations, and chomaticity. A rover will also be deployed with the goal of identifying the dielectric properties of the lunar regolith; an environmental property that has a significant effect on the LuSEE- Night’s beam pattern. Currently, LuSEE-Night’s flight hardware is assembled and ready and its launch window to the moon is set for late 2026.

Our work seeks to maximize the prospect of detecting the Dark Ages signal by using high fidelity simulations of LuSEE-Night as a tool to better understand and account for instrument and environmental systematics.