meer21cm: an Analysis Pipeline and Comprehensive Toolkit for HI Intensity Mapping

Abstract

We present meer21cm, a comprehensive python package for cosmological data analysis of single-dish HI intensity mapping surveys. This package is simple to use, with a modularised code structure designed for interactive usage. meer21cm is designed for data analysis, with particular focus on the UHF-band observation of MeerKAT Large Area Synoptic Survey (MeerKLASS). We explicitly impose meer21cm to be survey-oriented, ensuring consistent modelling of observational effects in the clustering power spectrum with the survey specifications and data analysis choices. meer21cm covers a large range of data analysis procedures post calibration, including data read-in, foreground cleaning, power spectrum estimation, mock simulation, transfer function corrections and parameter inference. It handles both meer21cm intensity maps and overlapping galaxy catalogues, allowing for multi-tracer and cross-correlation analysis between MeerKLASS and optical galaxy surveys. Tested with a simulated survey of ten $750\,$deg$^2$ sky patches in the redshift sub-band $0.6\,{<}\,z\,{<}\,0.8$, the meer21cm pipeline achieves per-cent accuracy in the power spectrum estimation for $k \in [0.02, 0.2]\,{h{\rm Mpc}^{-1}}$, with deviations $\lesssim 0.5σ$ between the mock and the model power spectra, where $σ$ is the signal variance. The meer21cm package is publicly available and easy to install, with a comprehensive documentation website at https://meer21cm.readthedocs.io