Power spectrum multipoles and clustering wedges during the Epoch of Reionization

We study the viability of using power spectrum clustering wedges as summary statistics of 21cm surveys during the Epoch of Reionization (EoR). For observations along a large lightcone z~ 7-9, the power spectrum is subject to large anisotropic effects due to the evolution along the light-of-sight. Information on the physics of reionization can be extracted from the anisotropy using the power spectrum multipoles. Signals of the power spectrum monopole are highly correlated at scales smaller than the typical ionization bubble, which can be disentangled by including higher-order multipoles. By simulating observations of the low frequency part of the SKA Observatory, we find that the sampling of the cylindrical wavenumber k-space is highly non-uniform due to the baseline distribution. Measurements in clustering wedges can be used for isolating parts of k-space with relatively uniform sampling, allowing for more precise parameter inference. Using Fisher Matrix forecasts, we find that the reionization model can be inferred with per-cent level precision with ~ 120hrs of integration time using SKA-Low. Comparing to using only the power spectrum monopole above the foreground wedge, model inference using multipole power spectra in clustering wedges yields a factor of ~ 3 improvement on parameter constraints.