Scintillation noise power spectrum and its impact on high-redshift 21-cm observations

Visibility scintillation resulting from wave propagation through the turbulent ionosphere can be an important source of noise at low radio frequencies (nu less than or similar to 200 MHz). Many low-frequency experiments are underway to detect the power spectrum of brightness temperature fluctuations of the neutral-hydrogen 21-cm signal from the Epoch of Reionization (EoR: 12 greater than or similar to z greater than or similar to 7, 100 less than or similar to nu less than or similar to 175 MHz). In this paper, we derive scintillation noise power spectra in such experiments while taking into account the effects of typical data processing operations such as self-calibration and Fourier synthesis. We find that for minimally redundant arrays such as LOFAR and MWA, scintillation noise is of the same order of magnitude as thermal noise, has a spectral coherence dictated by stretching of the snapshot uv-coverage with frequency, and thus is confined to the well-known wedge-like structure in the cylindrical (two-dimensional) power spectrum space. Compact, fully redundant (d(core) less than or similar to r(F) approximate to 300 m at 150 MHz) arrays such as HERA and SKA-LOW (core) will be scintillation noise dominated at all baselines, but the spatial and frequency coherence of this noise will allow it to be removed along with spectrally smooth foregrounds.