Separating out the Alcock-Paczynski Effect on 21cm Fluctuations

Abstract

We reconsider the Alcock-Paczynski effect on 21cm fluctuations from high redshift, focusing on the 21cm power spectrum. We show that at each accessible redshift both the angular diameter distance and the Hubble constant can be determined from the power spectrum. Furthermore, this is possible using anisotropies that depend only on linear density perturbations and not on astrophysical sources of 21cm fluctuations. We show that measuring these quantities at high redshift would not just confirm results from the cosmic microwave background but provide appreciable additional sensitivity to cosmological parameters and dark energy.