Evidence of Ultrafaint Radio Frequency Interference in Deep 21 cm Epoch of Reionization Power Spectra with the Murchison Wide-field Array

Abstract

We present deep upper limits from the 2014 Murchison Widefield Array Phase I observing season, with a particular emphasis on identifying the spectral fingerprints of extremely faint radio frequency interference (RFI) contamination in the 21 cm power spectra (PS). After meticulous RFI excision involving a combination of the SSINS RFI flagger and a series of PS-based jackknife tests, our lowest upper limit on the Epoch of Reionization (EoR) 21 cm PS signal is Δ2 ≤ 1.61 × 104 mK2 at k = 0.258h Mpc−1 at a redshift of 7.1 using 14.7 hr of data. By leveraging our understanding of how even fainter RFI is likely to contaminate the EoR PS, we are able to identify ultrafaint RFI signals in the cylindrical PS. Surprisingly this signature is most obvious in PS formed with less than 1 hr of data, but is potentially subdominant to other systematics in multiple-hour integrations. Since the total RFI budget in a PS detection is quite strict, this nontrivial integration behavior suggests a need to more realistically model coherently integrated ultrafaint RFI in PS measurements so that its potential contribution to a future detection can be diagnosed.