Toward a Direct Measurement of the Cosmic Acceleration: The Pilot Observation of HI 21 cm Absorption Line at FAST

Abstract

This study presents results on detecting neutral atomic hydrogen (H i) 21 cm absorption in the spectrum of PKS PKS1413+13 at redshift z = 0.24670041. The observation was conducted by FAST, with a spectral resolution of 10 Hz, using 10 minutes of observing time. The global spectral profile is examined by modeling the absorption line using a single Gaussian function with a resolution of 10 kHz within a 2 MHz bandwidth. The goal is to determine the rate of the latest cosmic acceleration by directly measuring the redshift evolution of the H i 21 cm absorption line with Hubble flow toward a common background quasar over a decade or longer time span. This will serve as a detectable signal generated by the accelerated expansion of the Universe at redshift z < 1, referred to as redshift drift or the SL effect. The measured H i gas column density in this DLA system is approximately equivalent to the initial observation value, considering uncertainties of the spin temperature of a spiral host galaxy. The high signal-to-noise ratio of 57, obtained at a 10 kHz resolution, strongly supports the feasibility of using the H i 21 cm absorption line in DLA systems to accurately measure the redshift drift rate at a precision level of around 10−10 per decade.