Astronomy Tea Talk

The CO Mapping Array Project (COMAP) is a line-intensity mapping (LIM) experiment with the goal of resolving the clustering signature of CO emission from galaxies across the first several billion years of cosmic history, ultimately including from the epoch of reionisation. The COMAP Pathfinder survey is currently operating from the Owens Valley Radio Observatory with a 19-pixel Ka-band spectrometer, the first purpose-built LIM instrument to target a star-formation line. Based on the first season of observations spanning from the start of July 2019 to the end of July 2020, the COMAP collaboration recently published a set of Early Science results, including the first direct 3D constraint on CO clustering at redshift 3. I will detail the survey parameters, the analysis undertaken on the Early Science data, and current expectations for detection of cosmological CO emissivity at the end of the nominal five-year Pathfinder survey.