Ionospheric Attenuation of Polarized Foregrounds in 21cm Epoch of Reionization Measurements: A Demonstration for the HERA Experiment

Foregrounds with polarization states that are not smooth functions of frequency present a challenge to H I Epoch of Reionization (EOR) power spectrum measurements if they are not cleanly separated from the desired Stokes I signal. The intrinsic polarization impurity of an antenna's electromagnetic response limits the degree to which components of the polarization state on the sky can be separated from one another, leading to the possibility that this frequency structure could be confused for H I emission. We investigate the potential of Faraday rotation by Earth's ionosphere to provide a mechanism for both mitigation of and systematic tests for this contamination. Specifically, we consider the delay power spectrum estimator, which relies on the expectation that foregrounds will be separated from the cosmological signal by a clearly demarcated boundary in Fourier space and is being used by the Hydrogen Epoch of Reionization Array (HERA) experiment. Through simulations of visibility measurements that include the ionospheric Faraday rotation calculated from real historical ionospheric plasma density data, we find that the incoherent averaging of the polarization state over repeated observations of the sky may attenuate polarization leakage in the power spectrum by a factor of 10 or more. Additionally, this effect provides a way to test for the presence of polarized foreground contamination in the EOR power spectrum estimate.